


A Little Spark of Madness

by HunterPeverell



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Howling Commandos, Bucky is a College Major in Artful Scruff, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Coffee Shops, Comedian Bucky Barnes, Conspiracy, Crushes, Hacker Steve Rogers, Hurt Steve Rogers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jokes, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nomad Steve Rogers, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, Song: Like Real People Do (Hozier), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Swearing, Tony Stark Has A Heart, do not repost to another site, kind of, or the author tries to make jokes, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 41,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24601396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: When Steve Rogers, fashion disaster and all-around train-wreck, finds himself in San Francisco, he attends a local comedy club on a whim and falls head over heels for one the comedians, Bucky Barnes. Over the next few weeks, Steve finds himself roped into Bucky’s strange and wonderful life, which includes a rambunctious group of bodyguards with explosives, an annoying billionaire whose dad Steve saw killed eight years prior, a counselor who is far too normal to be hanging out with any of them, a terrifying maybe-secret agent, and a laid-back landlord who shoots arrows at coffee cups. Steve might fit right in, given half a chance. Too bad he’s on the run, living under a false identity, and will be dead in three months’ time.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 313
Kudos: 260





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was mostly inspired by my binge-watching Robin Williams' movies over the past few weeks. Also I'm nearing the end of season 5 of Leverage and have a lot of Feelings(TM) about it and decided to mash the two things together. Here's the end result. Enjoy!
> 
> **PLEASE DO NOT REPOST TO ANOTHER SITE**

Steve looked so completely ridiculous no one would remember his face.

That was good. That was exactly what he wanted. He knew that if he dressed normally, he’d likely act just enough off that people would notice and remember him, because Steve sucked at being undercover. But dressed with massive red sunglasses that covered half his face, a tye-dye tank top under a too-large brown leather jacket covered in patches, and pajama pants covered in dancing pineapples, made it so that he could get away more easily with strange behavior and people probably wouldn’t be able to pick him out if he shed his ridiculous thrift store disguise and dressed normally.

Win-win, thank you Peggy.

Besides, it’s not like it mattered what he wore or which fashion aficionado it offended. After all, in three months’ time, he wouldn’t be _anybody's_ problem.

Steve slumped down in his seat, clutching his ratty grey messenger bag to his chest, and kicked up his feet onto the opposite chair so no overly-friendly person might be tempted to sit with him. He didn’t really know where he was besides the fact that the establishment was called the “Comic Lounge” and it was free to enter. Steve probably should have immediately gone about finding a hotel room or something to stay in, but he was exhausted from the last … what, month now? Finding a quiet, out of the way place to rest for an hour didn’t seem like too much to ask for.

The Comic Lounge seemed charming enough. There was some sort of stage a row or two away from him at the front of the room. The rest of the large space was filled with lots of tables—round tables in the center, longer tables towards the back, and small, two-person tables (one of which Steve had claimed) lining one of the walls. Against the opposite wall was a bar. The decor was charming, in a thirties speakeasy kinda way, all brick walls and cushy leather seats with a few potted plants here and there. The windows behind the second-floor balconies would probably light up the room up quite well, but the sun had set long ago, and so the only light came from the bulbs and lamps here and there.

Steve sighed and cracked his neck, wincing at the worrying number of pops. His groggy brain hoped no one noticed the dirt his boots left on the other chair.

The lights flashed on and off once, and people began taking their seats, their chatter quieting so that when, a minute later, the lights went off for good, everyone was seated and quiet.

A spotlight illuminated the stage, where there was nothing but a microphone on its stand and a stool with three water bottles on it.

Seeing the water bottles reminded Steve that he hadn’t drunken anything but coffee in over eight hours, and he dug around in his messenger bag until he found an unopened and slightly squished bottle.

While he unscrewed the cap and took a measured sip, a voice from nowhere said, “Everyone, please welcome to the stage … Bucky Barnes!”

The cheers, whistles, and applause were loud, and Steve started at the suddenness of it, accidentally spilling water all over his pants.

“Damnit,” he muttered as someone sauntered onto the stage.

The man—Bucky?—was tall, broad-shouldered, and well-muscled. Steve hadn’t known scruff could be artful, but Bucky had obviously majored in scruff at college and it was _doing_ things to Steve’s sleep-stupid brain. Bucky’s long dark hair was pulled back into a neat bun and he wore a navy blue suit that hugged his figure _just so._

“ _Damn,_ ” Steve muttered before taking another sip of water.

Bucky stopped at the microphone stand and snorted, which echoed double. He tapped his wine red tie where a small microphone was clearly visible and said, “Well, _this_ seems redundant.”

People laughed, and Steve tried to smother any sounds he might make.

“Whelp,” said Bucky, picking up the stand and carrying it off to the side of the stage. “Goodbye, dinosaur technology, may you rest in peace, and hello, hello, hello, San Francisco!”

People cheered and clapped again as Bucky smirked charmingly and ambled back to center stage. “You all good tonight, Comic Lounge?” Cheers. “Good, because I’m pretty sure I just saw Zach Galifianakis backstage and completely blew my chance to ask how the hell he remembered how to spell his name as a kid, so clearly _my_ night is going terribly.”

While the laughter died away, Bucky began strolling down one side of the stage slowly, taking something out of his pocket—Steve squinted and made out a silver pencil—and began twirling it idly between his fingers. “Hey, so, some of you might have gone to public school, right?”

There were a number of groans, and Bucky grinned and nodded. “Oh, _yes,_ ” he said. “Public schools, what a gem. I hope you’re all taking notes, because there _will_ be a test later.”

“Screw you, Barnes!” someone shouted from the back, and Bucky flipped them the finger and retorted, “Says you, _Dum Dum._ ”

“Aw, fuck off,” said the man over the crowd’s laughter.

“Anyway, ” Bucky switched directions and headed down the stage away from Steve. “Public school, or as literally everyone knows it as, _hell on wheelies_ , is like the worst thing ever invented—I know, hot take, right?” he added to the scattered laughter. “See, I moved around a lot as a kid, since my mom was in the military and all, and I was the kind of kid that tried to bean the teacher in the back of the head with bits of paper and pencils and stuff. And, yes, I _was_ intimately familiar with the principal’s office, thanks for asking.”

He ambled back towards Steve’s side of the room. “So, I’m chilling in the third row—which is objectively the best row, since all the pets are in the first two rows and the teacher _knows_ all the troublemakers and slackers are in the back, don’t even fight me on this—and people don’t want to mess with me at all since I’m eleven and already wearing black eyeliner. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” He grinned and Steve tried not to laugh. “But I bet I got through my emo phase way faster than any of you. Anyway, I’m getting ready to hit the teacher in the back of the head when I realize that there is a bird watching me.”

Bucky switched directions again. “It’s the dumbest looking bird I ever saw, which is a great achievement, because birds, unlike us humans, strive to look as dumb as possible.” Steve stifled another laugh. “So, I’m staring at this dumb bird and it, I kid you not, turns its head almost completely upside down like something out of _The Exorcist._

“I screamed. I screamed like a little girl on helium.” Bucky stopped at the edge of the stage not too far from Steve. “I screamed so loud and high that the teacher said it had to be the fire alarm and sent us all outside.” People laughed. “Yeah, that was Mr. Raymond in a nutshell. That man just did not give a shit. You know, I bet he _did_ know it was me and not the fire alarm, but he just wanted to get us outside so he could get some fresh air, because let me tell you that a bunch of eleven years olds just hitting puberty is the worst. Kids should be declared a health and safety hazard, or maybe a toxic bomb, I don’t know.”

Steve couldn’t help himself—he snorted, hard, with just enough sleep-deprived hysterics to make the noise sound like a dying zebra. The sound was rusty, as Steve hadn’t had a reason to laugh in a long, long time.

It certainly caught Bucky’s attention, and he saw the comedian hone in on his stupid embarrassing noise with delight. He knew the moment Bucky spotted him, because the delight only intensified.

“Sunglasses, huh?” Bucky asked, delight shifting into a smirk. “Indoors?”

Steve flushed brilliantly, and was thankful he didn’t think anyone, much less Bucky with the spotlight pointed at him, could see.

While not a naturally funny person, Steve was hellaciously stubborn and refused to be dissed in front of an audience, no matter how much he agreed with Bucky’s jab, so he jutted his chin and said the first thing his tired brain came up with, which was, “Hey, _you’re_ the one not showing respect, buddy.”

This seemed to take Bucky aback, and his eyebrow rose as he said, “Respect?”

“Yeah,” said Steve, his brain spluttering shakily as it tried to think of another part to the sentence. “In memory of—of Will Smith.”

Bucky’s other eyebrow raised to join the first. “Last I checked, Will Smith ain’t dead.”

“No?” said Steve, forcing dismay into his voice. “Damnit, I’m in the wrong timeline again.”

There was a smattering of laughter that was pretty gratifying, so Steve continued, “You guys haven’t reached that bit yet, so I won’t say another word. It, uh, does involve ducks.”

Bucky snorted and said, “Ducks?”

“And French Horns,” Steve added. “That’s _really_ all I’ll say, though.”

Bucky’s eyes glittered with amusement. “What’s your name?”

“Noam,” said Steve.

“Well, hey, Noam,” said Bucky. “Thanks for visiting this timeline. I’ll be sure to be wary of any ducks. God, more demon birds, fuck me running, just what I needed to hear tonight.”

He winked at Steve and continued on with his segment. Steve tried to figure out if Bucky had purposefully been trying to call him out, or if he had genuinely been leading him into a little side segment. The next forty minutes told him it was the latter, as Steve (who tried not to look at a few people nearby who were shooting him curious or amused looks for the next ten or so minutes after Bucky roped him into the act) watched Bucky engage “Dum Dum” (what even) again as well as someone else called Gabe and another man who seemed to only speak French and used Gabe as a translator. 

Steve thought that Bucky just enjoyed a little bit of audience participation. Once he figured that out, about fifteen minutes after Bucky had dragged him into the spotlight, so to speak, he let himself relax fractionally and enjoy the performance, because Bucky was _electric_ on stage. He was charming and charismatic enough that people cheered for more and with just enough sass and snark to add subtleties to his humor. Bucky was in his element on stage, and Steve found himself laughing more in the next forty minutes of Bucky’s show than he had since … well, since before his mom died eleven years ago.

“And so, with great regret, I had to return the little gremlin,” said Bucky. “Seriously, though, I had no idea bookstores sold actual monster stuffed animals. What kid would want a teddy bear when they could have a five-limbed and heavily fanged yeti-thing? C’mon, adults, get with the program. Anyway, our time has come to an end, folks. See you all in the next timeline!”

Bucky then dramatically bowed and skipped off stage to uproarious cheers and applause. Steve took that as his cue to leave, and he slunk quietly through the shadows, hoping against hope that no one bothered to look twice at him.

No one did, but Steve didn’t breathe easier until he was outside in the cool night air hoping muzzily that there was a hotel nearby.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of you kind comments! Enjoy :)

Steve really shouldn’t have gone back to the Comic Lounge. He really, really shouldn’t have. He had found a hotel just down the hill from the Lounge, thankfully, and had spent the rest of the night and more of the next day dozing fitfully, hugging his ratty messenger bag and its precious contents close to his chest.

Occasionally, he checked his phones, but there were no new messages. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.

He made sure the curtains were tightly closed and the windows were rigged with some minor explosives in case anyone tried to come in through them. He ordered enough room service to last him until the next morning and took a few minutes to check for poison, though he doubted there would be any (yet).

It wasn’t paranoid if he knew people were out to kill him, right?

And so the day passed with agonizing slowness, and by the time evening fell again, Steve was feeling restless and just about ready to pick a fight with the neighbor down the hall who was playing country music just a bit too loud.

That was why he decided to go back after he pulled out a shiny new laptop and checked Comic Lounge’s website and saw that Bucky was performing again.

Steve hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was really going to go out again. Sure, he planned on staying in San Francisco for the next three months, but it would likely be safer if he stayed in his hotel room as much as possible and didn’t make any attachments to a particular place or person.

But, well, it couldn’t help to go one last time. Steve had really enjoyed watching Bucky last night, and he really wanted to laugh again. It seemed like there was so little to laugh about, these days.

So Steve scarfed down some food, dressed in another eye-sore disaster outfit that included USA flag-patterned yoga pants and a old t-shirt with images of donuts all over it, and headed out for the Comic Lounge.

The bouncer didn’t even look at him when Steve sent a nod his way, and Steve quickly slipped inside.

Steve headed for the table he’d sat at the night before, but frowned when he saw it was taken by a couple who kept laughing and playing footsie.

Whatever, Steve could roll with that. He sat at the table behind them, once more kicking his feet up onto the opposite chair and slumping down in his seat.

While he was waiting for the show to begin, he tried to make himself look busy, taking a torn and stained notepad from his bag and doodling on it with a pen. He hadn’t drawn in a while and it showed. He moved from sketch to sketch, abandoning them all halfway through. He scratched at his chest, his fingers brushing his necklace, and he forcibly took his hands away.

The show was due to start in just a few minutes, so Steve people-watched. Most of the people there were between the ages of twenty-five to thirty-five, with a few older and younger folk here and there. Most people didn’t stand out, but there was a group towards the back who were loud and ractious. There was some large man with a bowler hat hooting and egging on an Asian man, who seemed to be trying to blow bubbles with a straw. The other three men laughed and cheered him on.

Steve looked down at the last scribble he’d done, which was a terrible rendition of Sousa, and frowned heavily.

God, he needed a reboot on his entire life.

Thankfully, the lights flashed on and off, and Steve settled back and waited for the minute to go by and Bucky was introduced back on stage.

“Hello, hello, hello, San Francisco!” he shouted as he bounded on stage. Tonight he tore a dark grey suit and a peacock blue tie and that just wasn’t _fair_. Steve tried not to stare too hard.

After the cheering and clapping died down, Bucky sidled up to the microphone and said, “The tech staff got huffy over the mix up yesterday, and so it’s been decided that tonight I get the dinosaur technology. _Typical._ ”

Scattered laughter followed this statement, and Bucky squinted out into the audience, his eyes scanning over the table where Steve had sat last night, which, of course, he wasn’t seated at now. “Is my good timeline traveling friend out there in the audience?”

Was Steve imagining that flicker of disappointment on Bucky’s face? Whatever. He called out, “Barely.”

Bucky’s gaze adjusted itself, and a grin spread across his face. “Well, hey, there, stranger. How goes the mourning?”

“Just fine,” said Steve, stolidly ignoring the people looking at him and trusting the strange clothes, the huge sunglasses, and the dyed hair would do enough to hide him from anyone who (insanely unlikely) might recognize him. “They’re still investigating the French Horn.”

“The French Horn,” said Bucky. “You mentioned that. Did it, what, gain sentience or something? Or was it in the wrong place at the wrong time and blew the wrong guy, so to speak?”

Steve snorted. “Well, it’s law that all deaths need to have a musical instrument,” said Steve. “Just so happened that Will Smith’s choice was the French Horn.”

“Slanderous!” shouted a man with a heavy French accent from the back of the room.

“That's a stupid law,” Bucky protested.

“Well, everyone needs an instrument of death,” said Steve, who barely had any idea what words were coming out of his mouth.

“A pun, _seriously?_ ” Bucky groaned.

“Hey, the future likes it,” Steve defended and added in an overly-earnest tone, “And it’s given rise to some great parodies. ‘Drums Shook Me All Night Long’ and ‘Recital Eight Days a Week’ have gotten a lot of popularity, you know.”

Bucky snorted. “And what instrument do you wanna go out with?”

“The accordion,” said Steve promptly.

“No,” Bucky groaned, throwing his head back. “Puns and now accordions? This is the _worst._ ”

“It’s the national instrument,” Steve protested. “No one remembers the words to the national anthem after the Great Sheep War! All that survived was an instrumental accordion version.”

“Oh, God,” said one of Bucky’s friends from the audience. “Save us all. I will take _any_ future but that one!”

“It does seem like the worst,” Bucky agreed. “But in all honestly, still slightly better than when I tried to start a band, back when I was twelve and dumb. I mean, not that I’m smart now, but back then I had a band called the Rocket Ringos, which is alright if you’re trying to send Ringo Starr into space, but for a bunch of horny teenagers, that was a bit ambitious…”

And Steve’s part of the segment was over. He let out a little sigh of relief and leaned back, ready to try to relax and maybe laugh a little bit.

Which was exactly what happened. No one tried to murder him while Bucky was performing (win) and he even managed to make a few laughter sounds that didn’t sound like a dying fog horn (win win). In all honesty, Steve had fallen out of the practice of laughing, and it was nice, really nice, to just sit back and watch Bucky own that stage.

When he left after Bucky’s hour was up, there was a decided spring to his step.

He didn’t know if he’d go back, but. Well. Maybe he would. One more time.

Steve pushed that thought away as he re-entered his hotel room. He shucked his horrible clothes and dressed in soft clothes that did double duty as great get-away clothes and also pajamas, then he collapsed on the bed.

He lay there for a long moment, eyes closed, and wondered how he was going to spend the next three months not going absolutely crazy stuck in this tiny room.

Maybe going out once or twice a day wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. He had to have faith that Peggy and Sousa’s training, plus his decoy, plus his disguise, would be enough to deflect attention away.

It would be nice, to get out sometimes. He just had to be careful. No biggie.

Steve pulled out the battered laptop and opened it up. The decoy was still running, and Steve was content to let it stay in Kópasker for a little while longer. He turned his attention to the other program, the decryption program, whose loading bar told him it still had eighty-six days before it would be finished.

“Why couldn’t Howard have told me the password?” Steve groused. “Fuck.”

He clicked the ‘sign-in’ button and typed in “REBORN.”

**FAILED**

**TRY 1 OF 3**

Steve frowned and tried “REBIRTH.”

**FAILED**

**TRY 2 OF 3**

“C’mon, Howard,” Steve muttered, typing in “STARK” without much hope.

**FAILED**

**TRY 3 OF 3**

Steve huffed out a breath and shut the battered laptop, frowning ferociously at nothing.

Then he shoved it back into his ratty messenger bag and burrowed under the covers, closing his eyes and willing himself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve slept well that night (four whole uninterrupted hours! Totally win) and woke up feeling, for the first time in over a month, decently refreshed and marginally more functional than normal.

He pulled the battered laptop out of his ratty messenger bag and opened its lid.

The decoy was still playing merry havoc, he was glad to see. It seemed that there was the barest trace of Steve Rogers somewhere in Chile. Not enough to make it obvious that it was a decoy, but enough that someone panicked and on the run with shoddy internet might accidentally leave behind. Perfect.

He switched programs and checked in on the decryption.

Which, to his annoyance but not surprise, hadn’t magically sped up over night.

He scowled at the screen. “Howard, you paranoid bastard,” he muttered at the laptop.

His stomach growled. He scowled down at nothing before sighing. “Right, breakfast.”

Steve dressed in ridiculous clothes again, slipped into his big leather jacket, put the battered laptop back into the bag, slung the bag across his body, and dug out Noam Grant’s phone.

There was a cafe a ten minute walk away that was pretty cheap for San Francisco, which sounded perfect. Steve slipped the phone in his jacket pocket and headed off.

Since it was the first time he was out in the city during the day, he took a moment to admire the fog-misted hills and the sparkling water along the bottom of the hill he was on, not far from his hotel, which look so different from the East River's murky grey depths.

The houses and shops looked like something straight out of a idyllic picture book, all quirky and colorful, and Steve couldn't help but admire the art people had left strewn around everywhere, from metalworks in gardens to colorful pieces across the walls of houses and stores.

The sight of all the art almost made up for the fact that Steve’s stupid asthmatic lungs hated the hill.

 _Ten minutes, yeah right,_ he thought. _That’d only be true if I had working lungs._

After a twenty minute climb, Steve finally made it up the hill where only a few buildings lay. At the very top, where the road turned into a dead end, was a large mansion with a decent-sized garden and three stories of white contemporary architecture. Along the opposite side of the street was an apartment building that looked a little shabby when compared to the mansion. Squished in between the apartment building and an independent fitness center was Steve’s goal, _Smashing Coffee._

The cafe was painted a cheerful green with various flower designs across it. A few people sat outside the cafe, chatting and enjoying themselves, and he spied a familiar patterned sticker in the corner declaring it had free Wi-Fi.

Before he crossed the street and headed over to it, he noticed a stall a little farther up the road from him selling various tourist trinkets, including some of the most tacky, gaudy sunglasses he ever laid his eyes on. Steve spotted a pair of black sunglasses with a mustache hanging from the bottom.

They were hideous.

...And Steve kinda wanted them.

Well, wasn’t hideous kinda what he was going for? Besides, he was clumsy and was bound to break the big pair on his face now sometime soon. At least, that was what he told himself as he purchased them and shoved them into his bag.

It certainly wasn’t to see how a certain comedian might react to them.

 _Shut up,_ he told himself sternly as he hurried over to the cafe. _You aren’t here for that. Focus!_

The door opened with a cheerful _ting!_ as Steve stepped inside, and he took a moment to look around.

There were a few patrons looking, for the most part, either way too happy for a … whatever day it was, or in a tearing hurry. There was one guy in a purple bullseye shirt with a bandage over his nose and bags under his eyes that was sitting slumped in a corner, muttering to himself over his coffee.

The rest of the cafe was … nice. All the tables and chairs were mismatched and seemed to be chosen for maximum comfort than for any particular theme. One wall was completely covered in local art, especially a lot of kids' pieces, and the other wall seemed dedicated to the newest scientific discoveries displayed in magazine clippings and print outs.

Steve made his way over to the counter where a blonde woman stood at the cash register, taking an order from a tall black man with an easy smile and an Air Force veterans sweatshirt.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” the woman told Steve. She had to be about seventeen, eighteen at most. Her name tag read Kate.

“Hey.” The man smiled at Steve, and Steve offered a tentative smile back at him.

“Alright, you’re all set,” said Kate. “How’s the boss treating you, Sam, huh?”

Sam groaned. “More budget cuts, the bastard. Seriously, anymore of that, and we might not be able to meet rent next month.”

“Seriously?” Kate’s smile dropped. “What the hell?”

“That’s what I said,” said Sam. “But I’ll figure it out. I got a few tricks to try?”

“Well, then, good luck. Meet’cha down at the other end.”

“Thanks, Kate,” said Sam, heading off.

“What can I get for you?” Kate asked.

“Uh,” said Steve, looking up at the menu. “Uh, the number three?”

“Sure thing,” Kate said, nodding and scribbling onto a cup. “Meet’cha down there, near Sam.”

Steve nodded and mumbled something unintelligible before stumbling off to where Sam stood near the man in the purple bullseye shirt.

“Ugh,” purple shirt guy moaned.

“You, uh, okay?” Steve asked quietly.

The man squinted blearily at him. His blonde hair was matted and slightly greasy, and now that Steve was closer, he could see that there were lots of bruises, new and old, littering his forearms.

“Peachy,” said the man. “Totally awesome.”

“Shut up, Clint.” Sam snorted. “What was it this time? Sparred too hard with Dugan?”

“I wish,” Clint mumbled.

Sam frowned. “Don’t tell me it was Lorn.”

“Here you go, Sam,” said Kate, sliding a coffee over.

“Thanks, Kate,” said Sam, passing over some money and taking the to-go cup. “Clint, man, you might wanna ask Tony for help.”

Clint glared blearily up at Sam and said, “ _That_ asshole?”

Sam let out a little half-laugh, half-sigh and shook his head. “Whatever. Just, you got friends, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint muttered. “Bye.”

“Later.” Sam headed out with a wave.

“And here's your coffee, old man,” Kate said dryly, shoving another coffee in a to-go cup across the counter towards Clint before returning to Steve's order.

“Old man?” Clint complained. “Respect your elders, Kate!”

“I'll respect you when you _are_ respectful,” said Kate tartly as she turned to work on Steve’s food.

Clint clapped a hand to his chest. “Ouch! Kate, that _hurt._ ”

“Aww, poor baby,” she said, entirely unsympathetic.

“Where’s the comfort?” Clint complained. “I’m wounded! Kamala would be nicer!”

“Well, you’re stuck with me today,” said Kate. “Tough luck.”

The two continued on in that strain, leaving Steve feeling out of place and wide-eyed as he watched the two tease and rib one another with a familiarity Steve had never felt before in his life, though Peggy and he were close. A few minutes later, she returned with Steve’s order, sliding it across the counter with a, “Here you go! That'll be $7.89.”

“So cheap,” said Steve, digging the money out, slightly suspicious. 

Kate shrugged. “Rich patron.”

Steve handed over the money and took his food, slinking over to an empty table not too far from Clint.

He was sure the food was delicious, but he couldn’t taste it. Some sort of eggs and toast with avocado dip. The drink was coffee, black and ready for Steve to doctor it up as he wanted.

Just as he was trying to figure out how much sugar to dump in his drink, he caught a glimpse of a loud crowd coming up to the door. He twisted around just in time to see Bucky entered the cafe surrounded by five other men, the ones he’d seen last night trying to blow bubbles from straws and egging each other on.

“—great, man, so great!” said one. “You see their faces?”

“Oh, yes,” said one with a posh English accent. “Absolutely brilliant.”

“Kate!” cried one with a thick mustache and a bowling hat. “How’re you today, scooter?”

“Fuck off, Dum Dum,” said Kate easily.

Dum Dum clapped a hand to his heart and said, “I get _no respect._ ”

“That’s what I said,” Clint complained.

All six of the newcomers zeroed in on Clint, who stared back at them blearily, and the teasing atmosphere sobered as they got a good look at Clint.

Finally, one of the guys (the one with the straw blowing bubbles) whistled lowly. “Wow, Barton. You look like shit.”

Clint made a face, then winced. “Shuddup, Morita.”

“What the hell happened, man?” Bucky asked.

Clint shrugged. “Ran into Johnny-B-Moron Lorn. He looks worse.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” said Morita, sounding admiring. “Kate, more coffee for our useless landlord.”

“Useless?” Clint protested, but not very heatedly as the group promptly moved over and engulfed him in their chatter.

Well, almost all of the group. Bucky stayed behind, and Steve noticed he was looking at Steve.

“...Hi?” said Steve.

Bucky sauntered over to Steve much like he had at the comedy club the night before and said, “You’re Noam, right?”

“Noam Grant,” said Steve, returning Bucky’s offered fist bump.

“Bucky Barnes,” said Bucky. “But I guess you’d know, huh?”

Steve shrugged.

“Can I sit?” Bucky nodded to the seat across from Steve.

“Sure,” said Steve, dumping copious amounts of sugar in his coffee, just for something to do.

“New in town?” asked Bucky, sitting gracefully in the empty chair. He wasn’t dressed in a suit and instead in black ripped jeans, a black shirt with a faded print on it, and black boots. Over the whole ensemble was a peacock blue vest. A dark leather bracelet was clasped around his left wrist emblazoned with a red star.

“Yep. Just got into town.”

“Traveling?” Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged and tried not to look too flustered. “Sure. Just wandering right now.”

“Cool,” said Bucky. “I wanted to apologize for calling you out, that first night. It wasn’t cool and I spoke without thinking through whether or not I should have done it.”

Steve offered him a little half-smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t think you meant any harm by it. Besides, it was fun.”

“Aw, thanks” Bucky said. “But it was still crappy. I mean, how many of us actually want to talk in front of an audience? Politicians and drunks, that’s who.”

“And those fanatics with signs,” Steve said.

“The ones who smell like sewage and say it’s so the Martians will take them,” Bucky mused.

“Hey, Martians go wild for Eau de Crazy.”

Bucky laughed and shook his head. “Well, thanks for joining in. Uh, and also, sorry for doing it again last night.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow. “Was that, too, an accident?”

“Naw, I just wanted to talk to you,” said Bucky. “But I’ll stop if you want.”

“That’s probably for the best,” said Steve. “I’m not funny, I just say dumb things.”

Bucky grinned. “People seem to still like the Three Stooges.”

Steve squinted. “You callin’ me a Stooge, Barnes?”

“Moe or less,” said Bucky.

“You punned,” Steve said. “Isn’t that scraping the bottom of the barrel, comedy wise?”

“That’s just my night job,” said Bucky easily. “Besides, it’s all subjective.”

“I suppose so,” said Steve. “I don’t mind, really.”

“Yeah?” Was it just Steve, or did Bucky actually sound hopeful?

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I’m no comedian, but that was, you know, fun.”

“I’m glad.” Bucky sounded sincere. “I do another show in three nights from now, if you wanna come. Uh, I won’t call you out if you don’t want that, but I’d love to know you’re out there.”

Steve frowned. “Why?”

Bucky brushed a strand of hair out of his face. “Dunno. You seem, uh … fun.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, though he didn’t think Bucky could seem them behind his ridiculous sunglasses. “Fun. Huh.”

“What?”

“Just,” Steve shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Never been called that before.”

He was about to say something else when one of his phones buzzed in his bag. He surged into action, rooting around for it and almost dropping it in his haste to answer.

“Woah,” said Bucky. “Emergency?”

“I gotta go,” said Steve, standing up, heart thudding in his chest. The person on the other side of the line was quiet, waiting for Steve to give the signal it was okay to talk.

Bucky looked disappointed, but covered it quickly. “Hope it’s nothing serious.”

“I—probably not,” said Steve.

“Hope to see you,” said Bucky. It sounded genuine.

Steve gave him a strained smile and hurried out of the cafe.

Once he was outside, he returned the call and shoved the phone to his ear.

“Pegleg?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nice long chapter! *collapses*


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter REALLY didn't want to come, gah.

Steve shut the hotel door behind him with trembling hands. He made sure to lock it before crossing the room and, foregoing the bed or chair, sank onto the ground, back against the bed. He withdrew the battered laptop, opening the lid. He ignored the decryption and the decoy and instead started up a new program, one he made specifically to help Peggy and Sousa.

His fingers flew as he scrambled electronic signals in their area, pinged Sousa’s phone so that it read that he was going in a completely different direction than he really was, and did his damndest to throw anyone off their trail.

After an hour, Steve got another phone call. He snatched the phone up and answered with one hand while his other continued typing.

“Pegleg?” he asked.

“Nomad,” Sousa answered. “We’re clear.”

“Thank god,” Steve breathed, then hung up.

Despite the assurance from Sousa, Steve stayed on a further two hours making sure that any agents after them had well and truly lost them.

Once he deemed it safe, he sat up from his awkward position and cracked his neck, wincing at the cacophony of noise, then did the same to his back.

He sighed and thunked his head back against the bed, groaning slightly, before deciding that he needed coffee, bad.

 _Smashing Coffee_ was still the closest place he could go to that wasn’t a Starbucks, so Steve went back there. Kate was no longer behind the counter, but a man with dark, curly brown hair had taken her place. He was taller than Steve, which didn’t actually mean much because Steve was tiny as hell, but he hunched over to make himself smaller. That said, there was an air of serenity about him that put Steve at ease.

“Black coffee,” said Steve, trying to quell the wheezing of his breath.

“Make that double,” said a voice behind him. “To-go for me, though.”

Steve turned around and saw Sam standing there behind him.

“What? I like my lunch fix,” Sam said mock-defensively.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” said Steve, giving him a small smile.

“I’d hope not.” Sam looked Steve up and down. “Mr. Sunglasses-indoors.”

“Shut up.” Steve crossed his arms. “I can do what I want.”

Sam laughed, and that was a really nice sound. Then he sobered up. “Asthma?”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “But that can’t stop me from getting my lunch coffee, either.”

“Man, I like you,” said Sam. “Sam Wilson.”

Steve shook his hand. “Noam Grant.”

Sam tilted his head to the various tables scattered around. “Wanna join me?”

The “Sure,” was out of Steve’s mouth before he could second-guess it, but he rolled with it and instead followed Sam to the pick-up line while the man—his nametag read Bruce— finished pouring their coffee and accepted their payment.

“So, you new in town?” Sam asked, leading Steve over to the place with the cream and sugars.

“Yeah,” said Steve.

“How long?”

“Not sure yet,” Steve admitted as he dumped some sugar into his drink. “Maybe a month or two?”

“Hope you’re in a hostel or something,” said Sam as he took a seat at a nearby table. Steve sat across from him. “Hotels are expensive for that period of time.”

Steve shrugged. “I got it covered, thanks. You a vet?”

Sam was still wearing his veterans sweatshirt, but he just nodded easily and said, “Two tours, pararescue. Now I just counsel others.”

“That’s awesome,” said Steve, and meant it genuinely. “I wanted to enlist, just couldn’t.”

To his relief, Sam didn’t pry. He supposed the obvious answer—his many health issues, for a start—would likely cross people’s minds when they saw a skinny asthmatic kid with a crooked back, and not the fact that Steve was, technically, a criminal on the run from worse criminals, and had been since he was sixteen.

“There are other ways to serve the country,” Sam said, and Steve’s estimations of him rose as he didn’t say any of the trite platitudes others had like, “ _You got lucky, boy_ ” or “ _It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, kid._ ”

“Yeah, I got that eventually,” he said. “But try telling that to thirteen-year-old me.”

Sam laughed. “Man, I don’t think I’d want to. I can only imagine your attitude then.”

Steve debated getting irritated over that, then dismissed it. He was too tired. Instead, he shook his head. “My poor mom had to deal with it. I put her through hell over it, but she was a nurse and practical, and there was no brooking argument with her.”

“I get that. My ma, man, you did _not_ want to get on the wrong side of her, you feel?”

“To stern mothers,” said Steve, raising his coffee cup in mock salute.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Sam. “So, what’re you doing for work?”

“I was in IT,” said Steve, the half-truth falling easily from his lips. “But I’m taking a couple months off for the hell of it. Always wanted to come out to California.”

Most of that was a lie, but Steve had done all the practice runs just like Peggy had instructed him to years ago, and so it came out just like the truth would.

“Everyone needs a vacation,” Sam said. “Hope you stay in the area. Unfortunately, I gotta get my tail feathers in gear and head out for my next group session.”

“Good luck,” said Steve.

“Thanks,” said Sam, rising. “Hope I’ll see you around, Noam.”

Steve watched him go and, once Sam had vanished, spent the rest of the time looking out the window and slowly finishing his coffee.

The next three days passed fairly quickly, but that was mostly because Steve spent most of them sleeping, eating, and mindlessly watching television. He checked in on his decoy every few hours and spent a couple hours each day trying to guess Howard’s password for the decryption program to speed the process up.

“Paranoid bastard,” he grumbled under his breath after every failed attempt, glaring at the bar that told him the decryption would be finished in an estimated eighty-two days. He sent his decoy’s signal on a plane to Suwon and spent a few hours tinkering with a few devices he’d built over the years, most of which he’d done at Peggy’s behest so he had something to protect himself if his position ever got compromised.

Steve wished he’d listened to her more, but he’d been so _sure_ they wouldn’t be compromised… But, well. Now he just had to nag himself to make more flash bangs and gas pens, since Peggy certainly wasn’t in a position to do it.

He stopped tinkering when his thoughts got too depressive and instead stared blankly at reruns of _Doctor Who._

By the time the third night, when Bucky said his next show was (and Comic Lounge’s website confirmed), Steve was going more than a little stir crazy. He hadn’t gone outside except once a day for coffee and couldn’t shake the feeling he was stirring in his own juices, so to speak.

It wasn’t smart, getting attached to any particular person or place. It would only make the inevitable harder.

But, well.

He couldn’t deny that part of him really, really wanted to go. He wanted to laugh, to forget about the world for a little while. He wanted to remember what it felt like to enjoy something.

...Which was a really sad sentiment, now that he thought about it.

 _Tonight will be the last night,_ he promised himself. _No more Comic Lounge after tonight._

It was the right choice for everyone.

So twenty minutes before Bucky’s show was due to start, Steve showered, dressed in more eyesore clothing as well as the leather jacket, and donned his new mustached glasses. To complete the outfit, he slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, the battered laptop safe within.

Something lifted off his shoulders as he approached the Lounge, the lightness almost immediately crushed when he was stopped by the bouncer.

He felt like a fool in his stupid glasses as he craned his head to look at the bouncer. “Sir?”

“You Noam?” the bouncer asked gruffly.

“Uh,” said Steve, immediately on guard. “...Yeah?”

The bouncer held something out. Steve adjusted his gaze down and saw the bouncer held a microphone in one hand.

“Barnes wanted to know if you wanted it. Some of the people in the back of the room have a hard time hearing you,” the bouncer said.

“Uh,” said Steve, slowly taking the microphone. “Thanks?”

The bouncer shrugged and went back to ignoring Steve’s existence.

Steve wasn’t sure how he felt about becoming part of Bucky’s act, but most of the negative thoughts were easy to brush aside. None of the people after him had ever heard his real voice—he always mixed it up digitally—and the Lounge was dark enough that any and all video footage would be grainy and terrible at best.

He let out a little breath. It would be _fine._

Just to mess with Bucky, Steve took a seat on a stool by the bar and kept people’s gazes away by messing with his burner phone, playing game after game of Solitaire.

A thrill went up Steve’s spine as the room darkened and the announcer welcomed Bucky on stage. This time, Bucky wore a bright blue suit and a silver tie and he looked incredible.

Stop, Steve told himself firmly, which wasn’t actually very firm. Damnit.

“Hello, hello, hello, San Francisco!” Bucky spread open his arms and grinned widely at the cheering, whooping crowds. Steve joined in on the applause belatedly.

“Well, well, well,” said Bucky. “How are we all tonight?”

Another wave of cheering had him nodding and finally sauntering over to the center of the stage.

“Today I get the nice microphone.” Bucky tapped his tie, his smile shifting to something more smug. “Something happened to the last microphone—don’t give me that, guys! I had nothing to do with its ‘unfortunate’ demise, it was all Dum Dum.”

“Hey! You said you wouldn’t tell!” Dum Dum shouted from the back.

“Then you shouldn’t have eaten the last of Bruce’s cookies,” Bucky retorted then grinned. “Why, yes folks, I _am_ an actual adult. I do taxes and everything. Just last week I did the most adult thing I could think of, which was trying to fix my sink, and I gotta say, despite almost flooding my entire house and accidentally switching the hot and cold water around, I think I aced it.” He winked. “If my mother could see me now … Well, you know, it’s probably best if she didn’t.

“‘Jimmy, you did _what?_ ’” Bucky affected a higher-pitched voice. “‘How is it even possible to switch the taps around? It’s not that hard to fix a leak with the right parts!’ And then,” he said switching his voice back to normal. “My mom would magic the necessary parts out of the air and everything would be fixed in the next five minutes, but I haven’t reached that level of adulting just yet.”

He began to pace back and forth across the stage again, taking the pencil out of his pocket and twirling it through his fingers.

“Do you guys ever have those moments where you just completely forget an everyday, commonplace object? Like you roll out of bed after a night out drinking and you've got, like, the worst hangover ever, only you forget that, say, coffee machines exist? That happened to me one time, only my head was trying to burst out of my skull so bad that I also forgot that I own a kettle, and I stood in the kitchen staring at my stove trying to remember how to boil water for a good ten minutes before remembering that, oh, right, I have a machine for that.

“I have this friend you know, who never lets me forget when I have these what my mother called ‘brain farts.’ I swear, you're out and about having fun and you do a double take when you spy a poster for a movie and think, ‘Wow, I completely forgot that Brendan Fraser existed’ and this friend of mine, I swear he has a radar for this, because he'll immediately jump on this momentary lapse of memory and rib the shit outta me for it.”

Bucky's eyes flickered over to where Steve sat the last two nights. Steve’s nerves racked up several notches. It was one thing to think up stupid things in a sleep-deprived haze and quite another when he was actually awake. However, he didn’t want to let Bucky down, and so he picked up his microphone and said, “You might be suffering from leaks from other timelines, Barnes.”

“Noam!” Bucky cried, switching his gaze to the general direction of the bar. “You bastard! These brain farts from you? Have you been pranking me?”

Steve shrugged, though no one could see it. “What can I say? It's like they always said on the Spice Girls’ cooking show ‘Spicy Girls,’ you only secretly serve ghost peppers to your friends and enemies.”

“I think that's only if you want your friends to _become_ your enemies," said Bucky dryly. “Also, does that make me a friend or an enemy?”

“Well,” said Steve. “Isn’t that the question?”

“I’m terrified now,” Bucky announced to the crowd, who tittered. “But hit me up with that Spicy Girls show. I need more cooking shows in my life. Noam, everyone! Thanks for popping back into this timeline, Noam!”

“Sure thing,” said Steve as people clapped and cheered. He carefully set his microphone down, trying not to think about how sweaty his hands were.

His heart beat rapidly, and he kept his head down and his laughter muffled as Bucky continued on. It took another ten minutes for his nerves to slowly ratchet down, and another five for him to actually take in and enjoy whatever Bucky was saying. By the end of the hour, Steve was laughing with everyone else.

When Bucky was drawing to a close and wrapping up, Steve slid off his stool and made his way to the exit before the lights turned back on, hurrying for the door.

“Goodnight, one and all!” Bucky shouted.

Steve paused at the door to the outside just in time to watch Bucky saunter off the stage. He hoped he didn’t look too longing, but he probably did.

“Goodbye, Bucky,” he whispered just before he left the Lounge.

However, as he slipped outside past the bouncer, his movements slowed as someone leaning against the wall of the Lounge a yard or so away puffed on a cigarette, and in the orange glow, Steve could see their eyes were fixed on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Pegleg" was Sousa's nickname from his jerk coworkers in _Agent Carter_ , I'm pretty sure, but I mean, it's also a nice code name, so I ran with it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh ... More swearing than usual in this chapter, fyi. Nothing particularly offensive, just, y'know, swearing.

“I suppose you’re Noam,” said the man. It was pretty dark out, but Steve could make out a little of the man’s face by the orange glow of his cigarette. There was a mustache and some sort of red hat.

Steve tensed, his hand slipping into the pocket of his messenger bag where he gripped a gas pen. “And you are?”

“Montgomery Falsworth,” said the man. “But call me Monty. I’m friends with the loud assholes in the back. Nice glasses.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Steve, flushing and feeling acutely self-conscious. He relaxed his grip on the pen and eased up on his posture. “Nice to, uh, meet you.”

“And you,” said Monty. “Though I was out here hoping to catch you.”

Steve immediately stiffened, not liking the sound of that. He shoved his hand into one of the pockets in his messenger bag and closed his fingers around one of Howard’s devices. He tried to make sure his voice was even as he asked, “Oh?”

“Yeah,” said Monty, rubbing his cigarette out on the wall. “You see, we Howlies figured you’d slip away quick as you could and we wanted to see if you’d like to come with us for some drinks.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with that, so he blurted out, “What? Why?”

“You seem like a nice enough person.” Monty shrugged. “And Bucky seems to like you. I trust his judge of character.”

Steve couldn’t help but flush, so he cleared his throat and said, “I’d hate to crash on your celebrations…”

“You wouldn’t be,” Monty assured him.

“There he is!” boomed a loud voice. Steve saw Dum Dum followed by Morita and the two others whose names he hadn’t gotten following on his heels.

“Uh, hi?” he tried.

Dum Dum didn’t offer him a handshake or a fist bump and instead clapped a hand on Steve’s bony shoulder. “Noam, right? Awesome. Glad Monty caught ya! Let’s get to the bar, huh?”

“I wasn’t—” Steve began, but none of the group seemed to hear and instead scooped him along with them, out into the cool night air and off down the street while the group chattered with one another with an ease born of long familiarity.

“We should hit the gym tomorrow,” said Monty to Morita.

Morita made a face. “Can if you want. I’m going to get shitfaced and sleep away the whole day.”

“Hear hear!” Dum Dum laughed.

“Idiots,” muttered the man with the French accent, winking as Steve, who tried for a smile and probably looked like he had constipation instead.

Steve looked at his hotel almost longingly as they passed it, but he didn’t try to break free from the group as they carried him onwards towards a bar. He should have. But it was … it was really nice with—what did Monty call them? Howlies?—Bucky’s friends, who chattered back and forth, teasing and leaping from one topic to another. No one was upset, no one was tense, and the easygoing atmosphere was annoyingly soothing to Steve.

“You ever boxed, Noam?” one of the men whose name he didn’t know asked.

“Does it look like I have?” Steve asked, managing to make his voice sound dry. “I’d probably lose a fight to a pomeranian and end up wheezing on it.”

“Glad Bucky picked you,” said Morita. “He occasionally does that. Forgets he’s in front of crowd, the idiot. Hope you weren’t too put out.”

“Not at all,” said Steve. “I, uh, had no idea what I was saying.”

“And you won’t be in a little bit!” said Dum Dum cheerfully as he pushed open the bar door. “Welcome to Hotel Cali!”

“I’ll get the first round,” Monty promised, peeling off while the others herded Steve to a table in the corner.

“Good man!” Dum Dum hollered after him.

“Our table’s free, awesome,” said one of the Howlies Steve didn’t know.

“Grab it quick!” Morita said, shoving the man forward.

“Fuck off, Jim,” said the man.

“Up yours,” Morita retorted. “Hurry!”

“So, Noam, where’ya from?” Dum Dum asked as the group tramped over to a large empty table with a terrible view of any TV, which was probably why it was empty in the first place.

“Ah, ah, ah,” said Morita. “First, introductions! You already met Monty, and this lug here is Dum Dum.”

“Hey,” Dum Dum protested, but didn’t seem at all upset.

“This is Dernier,” said Morita.

“Bonne nuit,” said Dernier, bristling his mustache at Steve, who snorted.

“Aaand this is Gabe.” Mortia gestured to the Howlie who snagged the table.

“Hey,” said Gabe. “Where’re you from, Noam?”

“New York,” said Steve as the Howlies all settled down in chairs.

Dum Dum boomed out a laugh. “Really?” This seemed deeply funny to the group.

“So’s Bucky,” Morita explained. “Well, some of the time. Moved around a lot as a kid, military, you know?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Dad was military.”

“Huh, so you move around like Bucky?”

Steve shook his head. “Died when I was a year old.”

“That’s rough, man,” said Morita sympathetically.

Steve shrugged. “It happens. Never knew him.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Dum Dum. “If I had a drink. Hurry up, Monty!”

“Fuck off, Dugan,” Monty’s voice said from somewhere near the bar.

“My dad ran off,” said Dum Dum cheerfully. “Good riddance. But we’re not here to talk about that, we’re here to talk about you! What brings you out to Cali?”

“Good Wi-Fi,” said Steve. “And a chance to see somewhere new.”

“Good Wi-Fi.” Morita snorted.

“Work in IT,” said Steve. “I’m on vacation.”

“Awesome,” said Dum Dum. “Hey, hey, we could show you around!”

“No one wants you to show them all your favorite strip clubs, Dugan,” said Gabe.

Dum Dum clapped a hand to his heart. “I’m sorry, I have more taste than _that!_ ”

“Raise of hands,” Gabe ordered. “Who thinks Dum Dum doesn’t have more taste than that?”

Everyone except Steve raised their hands, even Dum Dum, who seemed delighted.

“You all suck,” he said, grinning. “But you’re right! Maybe just Bucky should show you around?”

“Why would Bucky show me around?” Steve asked, confused.

“Because he actually likes learning about stuff,” said Morita. “Not that we don’t, but look, I just live here right now. I don’t need to do touristy things and learn all there is to know about San Francisco, but Bucky, for whatever reason _does._ ”

“It helps, with the comedy,” said Dernier.

“Oh, hey, Bucky!” Dum Dum shouted, waving.

Steve twisted around, heart leaping into his throat as he saw Bucky, still in his gorgeous suit, with Clint and…

...And Tony Stark.

“Shit,” Steve hissed under his breath, shrinking in on himself.

“Well, hello, my long-lost body guards,” said Tony Stark. “At least _these_ two didn’t leave me high and dry.”

“I’m not your body guard,” Clint grumbled.

“Yet,” said Tony Stark confidently.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Nope.”

“We had a budding comedian to catch,” interrupted Morita, nudging Steve, unrepentant.

“A likely excuse,” the billionaire said, glancing at Noam. He didn’t recognize Steve, of course. Steve would have been surprised if he had. But still, it was incredibly jarring to finally see the man Howard had told him about occasionally, standing live before him, dark hair just going silver and with all the cocky smugness he radiated in every photo ever. “He could be cuter. I’m surprised at you, Barnes.”

“Fuck off, Tony,” said Bucky, gazing at Steve, too.

He offered Bucky a little smile, which Bucky returned easily.

“Yeah, Monty caught him,” said Morita.

“That I did,” Monty agreed as he appeared with an entire tray of drinks.

“Cheers, Monty!” Gabe said as everyone grabbed a drink. Steve didn’t join the rush, but Bucky grabbed him one anyway, so he took it with a muttered “Thanks” and tried not to let their hands brush.

“Hey, come on guys, who is he?” Tony Stark demanded as he and Clint dropped into the last two available chairs. “Why’s he wearing those ridiculous glasses? I’m wounded nobody told me about this guy! Who is he?”

Clint snickered and said, “That’s Noam.”

Tony Stark made a disgusted sound. “What kind of name is _Noam?_ ”

Steve folded his arms. “Mine.”

“Forgive Tony, he’s naturally an asshole,” said Bucky, stealing a chair from another table and nudging it between Steve and Morita’s. “Budge.”

“Bossy,” Morita muttered, but obligingly scooted.

“Well, it’s a stupid name.” Tony wasn’t letting it go, and Steve tried really hard not to roll his eyes.

“So’s Tony Spark,” he pointed out.

Most of the group laughed, and Tony spluttered and said, “ _Stark!_ My name is _Stark!_ ”

“Oh, so you just really want a throne,” said Steve, grinning.

“Fuck _off,_ ” Tony cried while the Howlies howled with laughter. “I hate you all.”

“You love us!” Dum Dum jeered. “That’s why you hired us all!”

Steve looked over at Bucky, was momentarily distracted by the fact that Bucky was already looking at him, then rallied and asked, “You’ve been hired by Tony Stark?”

Bucky shrugged and took a sip of his drink. “Told you comedy was my night job. I’m on Tony’s guard roster when he’s on the West Coast. You know that cafe, right? Yeah, Tony’s friends with the owner, and he owns the mansion at the top of the hill.”

“Wow,” said Steve. “No wonder you have so much material for your skits.”

Bucky snorted his drink and began coughing. Morita smacked him on the back a couple of times.

“Fuck, Noam,” Bucky spluttered, still trying to laugh.

It wasn’t attractive, having a bunch of alcohol running down into his scruff, but the way Bucky flailed and lunged for a napkin certainly was, and most of the table laughed and ribbed him while he dabbed it at his chin.

“Hey, Bucky, Noam here’s from New York, too!” Dum Dum said. “Ain’t that neat?”

“Super duper,” said Bucky. “Now if I could only remember actually _living_ in New York, we’d have loads to talk about!”

“Thought you said once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker,” Morita said.

“Shuddup,” Bucky said amicably, taking a more measured sip of his drink.

“Careful,” said Steve. “Don’t wanna have another spill.”

Bucky shot him a glare, but Steve just returned it with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, I like him,” said Tony.

“Oh, fuck, Steve, run for your life,” said Bucky. “Stark collects people. Run! Hide! Save yourself!”

“Hey, who gives you your paycheck?” Tony protested.

“Pepper,” said Bucky and most of his friends.

“I hate you _all,_ ” said Tony. “So, so much.”

Clint snickered and said, “You love us, Tone Deaf.”

“Tone Deaf?” Tony demanded.

Clint tapped his ear and said, “Eh?”

“Oh, fuck you!” Tony threw a handful of peanuts and Clint, who caught one in his mouth and chewed it open-mouthed.

“Buncha cretins,” said Bucky in disgust before elbowing Steve. “Nice glasses, Noam.”

Steve snorted. “Thanks. I look like a moron.”

“Join the club,” said Bucky, completely missing the part where he was a) dressed in a suit and b) a college major in artful scruff.

The rest of the table got louder, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Thanks for participating tonight!” he shouted over the racket that was Gabe and Dernier singing loudly in French while Tony and Dum Dum seem to be arguing over something called “Dummy” and whether or not it deserved cookies.

“Sure thing!” Steve shouted back. “It was pretty fun. But, uh, I think I’m gonna go!”

Steve, who had been born slightly hard of hearing, winced at the noise, which kept growing as other groups entered the bar. Some were singing, others were cheering over some game on the TVs scattered about, and still others were getting into light-hearted arguments. Steve wasn’t the sort of person who frequented bars, and honestly couldn’t say he cared for them much.

“I get you!” Bucky shouted back. “Mind if I join?”

“If you want!” Steve hollered.

“You leaving already?” Morita asked. This drew the attention of everyone at the table as Steve and Bucky stood up.

“I got stuff to do,” said Steve.

“Boo!” Tony jeered. “Quit your job, work for me, stay for more drinks!”

“No peer pressure, Stark,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes and heading off for the door. “See you fellas later!”

“Later Barnes!” the Howlies called back.

Steve slipped a few bills out of his pocket and tucked them under his drink, then hurried after Bucky, joining him just as Bucky was pushing the door open to the outside.

The night air was a welcome relief after the sweaty, alcohol-laden air from the bar.

“You don’t gotta come with me,” said Steve. “I can walk by myself.”

Bucky shrugged and said, “Yeah, but I’d like to come. If that’s cool.”

Steve snorted. “Sure. But I’m not exactly known for my wit and conversation wins.”

“Who really is?” Bucky stuffed his hands in his pockets as they made their way up the street. “I mean, no kid wants to be good at conversations. If wishes came true as a kid, no one would wish for that. Everyone would wish to, like, be good at flying or getting away with stealing the last Reeses Piece from their sibling.”

“Only child,” said Steve.

Bucky snorted and shook his head. “Then getting the last piece from your mom.”

“Aw man, I could never have swung that,” said Steve. “She was a nurse and trust me, you do not want to piss a nurse off.”

“Why not?” Bucky asked.

“They know where all your blood vessels are,” said Steve grimly.

They both broke up laughing the next moment.

“Shit, I know you’re just traveling,” said Bucky. “But it’s been fun. Wanna trade numbers?”

“Uh, sure,” said Steve. He brought out one of his reserve burner phones from his messenger bag. “What’s your number?”

Bucky gave it to him and Steve sent out a text. Bucky’s phone chirped with the sound of a foghorn.

“Thanks,” said Bucky.

“Well, this is my hotel,” said Steve.

“Awesome. Hey, if you’re still around for like the next week or so, hit me up and I’ll take you on a tour of the hottest new spots, huh?” He winked.

Steve rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, I might.”

“Cool.” If Bucky was upset with Steve for not saying yes or no, he didn’t show it. Instead he gave Steve a 100-watt smile and sauntered off down the street, whistling to himself.

Steve watched him go and couldn’t deny the pang somewhere in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting the Howlies know Steve as Noam, why did I do this to myself >.<


	6. Chapter 6

Steve managed to wait two days before he texted Bucky about the tour. He couldn’t seem to help himself. It was wrong, to get involved in Bucky, but Bucky made him feel so _alive_ , in ways he hadn’t felt in … well, years now.

That was why, a week into his stay in San Francisco, he and Bucky strolled along a concrete path lined with trees and parking lots not too far from the famous Golden Gate Bridge, dodging crowds of tourists and looking out over the sparkling waters of the bay.

“We, what, gonna walk across the bridge?” he panted.

Bucky slowed his pace. “Not what I had in mind, but we can if you want.”

“No thanks.” Steve flashed him a grin. “Just wondering where we’re going, is all.”

“It’s just under the bridge,” said Bucky.

“There’s something under the bridge?” Steve asked.

“Yep.” Bucky popped the ‘p’.

“No one ever tells me these things,” Steve complained. “What, is there a pool resort at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?”

“I think that’s just called a river,” said Bucky, grinning.

Steve smacked him. “Jerk.”

“Shuddup, you little punk,” Bucky retorted.

“I’m not a punk,” Steve protested.

“Hey, according to Urban Dictionary, a punk is all about being yourself,” Bucky shot back. “It’s not two-foot red mohawks and stuff, it’s just being you, and honestly Steve, I can’t think what else screams ‘punk’ more than red-white-and-blue striped yoga pants with fucking suspenders and a technicolor nightmare shirt with a leather jacket over it. Were the lights turned off when you chose that outfit?”

They had been, but Steve just glared and said, “I can wear whatever I want.”

“Not saying you can’t,” said Bucky. “Just saying you’re a bona fide punk.”

“Fuck off,” Steve muttered.

“Aw, just teasing you, pal,” said Bucky.

“‘Pal’?” Steve raised an eyebrow. “What are you, old?”

“Twenty-seven ain’t old!”

“I’m almost twenty-seven and _I_ don’t go around calling people ‘pal’.”

“Almost?” Steve nearly groaned at Bucky’s interest. “When’s your birthday?”

Like hell Steve was going to give Bucky his actual birthday. A little too memorable. So he said, “July second.”

“That’s coming up,” said Bucky.

“In, like, a month,” Steve protested. “It’s May.”

“End of. And July’s still closer than August,” said Bucky, grinning. “My point still stands.”

“You’re the worst,” Steve grumbled.

Bucky laughed, then asked, “You going home for it?”

Steve shrugged as they made their way down a steep slope to where a dark grey building huddled beneath the bridge. “No idea. Probably not.”

“Not gonna spend it with friends? Family?”

Steve shook his head. “Not up to it.”

“That’s fair,” said Bucky, and Steve _really_ wanted off this topic.

“So, you got an eclectic group of friends,” he said.

“Yeah.” Bucky scratched his chin. “Bunch of assholes, the lot of them.”

“How’d you all meet?”

Bucky shrugged. “Well, Clint and me trained together—snipers—and I got shuttled off to the Howling Commandos. Us Howlies, we were the elite of the elite, and we got Tony outta some bad shit out in Afghanistan couple years ago. As thanks, he made us job offers for when we got discharged. Not all the Howlies are discharged—big unit, y’know?—but the couple of us that decided enough was enough at the end of our tour came out here.”

“And now you’re living in San Francisco,” mused Steve.

Bucky shrugged. “I got back in contact with Clint—he went to work someplace else, top secret and all—and found out he was living here. Tony had no problem with us being his West Coast guard—dude spends most of his time out here, ‘cause Bruce.”

Steve frowned. “The _Smashing Coffee_ guy?”

“They’re friends,” said Bucky. “Met through being smart or whatever, I don’t know.”

“Huh,” said Steve.

Bucky shrugged again and sighed. “This isn’t where I expected to be when I was younger, but I gotta say, I’m kinda happy right now.”

“That’s good,” Steve croaked. It sounded amazing, actually. Friends, a job, an entire world on a hill with the sea at the horizon. He had to close his eyes so he wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the sheer longing that coursed through his body.

He didn’t get to want that.

“So, is Tony _the_ Tony Stark?” he asked, breaking the peaceful silence between the two of them.

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, what an ass, am I right? Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. And an utter moron.”

Steve smiled thinly. “He seems nice.”

“I think he wants to be nice,” said Bucky. “I never met him before Afghanistan and, even more before that, before his dad died, but Bruce and Pepper assure me he was way worse. He’s trying.”

Steve looked away at the mention of Howard, trying very hard not to remember Howard’s body jerking back with bullets, and swallowed heavily. He wondered if Tony knew his dad had been murdered. The newspapers certainly hadn’t—they’d run with the story that Howard’s heart gave out. _Stress, you know?_ was the common consensus. Dirty coroners. Steve’s fist balled and trembled with old familiar fury, and he forced his hands to relax, to let out a slow, measured breath.

New topic again, moving right along.

“Why comedy?” he asked, hoping Bucky wouldn’t call him out on his abrupt topic changes throughout the conversation.

The shift did seem to throw him slightly. “Huh?”

Steve winced, but bulldozed ahead. “Well, you got a good job working for Stark,” said Steve. “Why do comedy?”

Thankfully, Bucky shrugged and went with it. “I love making people laugh.”

“Is it easy, to make people laugh?”

Bucky snorted hard. “Fuck no! Comedy is gruelling and audiences don’t really care if you succeed or fail. They’ll laugh and boo you off the stage if you mess up, no questions asked.”

“Sounds, uh, rough,” said Steve.

Bucky shrugged. “I learned pretty early on that one of the best weapons out there is humor. Laughter disarms people. People love to laugh, and they love people who make them laugh. But it also heals them. It makes them enjoy life a bit better, you know? It’s my job and all to be a weapon, protecting some rich asshole, but I just really fucking love making people laugh. It’s not really a job, you know? I donate any money I get off it to charities.”

“Deep,” said Steve, and though he meant it semi-seriously, Bucky shoved him and said, “Shaddup.”

“You got family?” Steve asked in the lull while Bucky led him along a dirt path through some trees with the explanation of, “Shortcut.”

“I do,” said Bucky. “Two parents, they live on a small farm in Indiana. Three sisters, but they’re all scattered across the country. We see each other for Thanksgiving on the farm and rotate who’s place we go to for Christmas. You?”

“Just a mom,” said Steve. “But, uh, she died. Got pneumonia, couldn’t shake it.”

“That’s rough,” said Bucky. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” said Steve, and why couldn’t he come up with conversation topics that didn’t make him sad, mad, or utterly depressed? Wow, he wasn’t good at this. “So, what is that place?”

They stepped back onto the concrete path and Steve could see that there was, indeed, a large grey building under the bridge.

“Fort Point,” said Bucky. “It’s got some historical importance or whatever, but I mostly like it because I can look up at the underside of the Great Red Bridge and admire how not-golden it is.”

“How inspiring,” said Steve dryly.

Bucky waggled a finger at Steve, his grin open and infectious. “I’m a very deep person.”

They made their way down to the fort and climbed up the stairs and looked up at the red bridge and oohed and ahhed a little bit before wandering through the structure. There were cannons and informational plaques, though Steve and Bucky both spent most of their time ribbing each other over the most inconsequential things. Steve hadn’t felt this easy in another person’s presence in … maybe ever. Even with Peggy, he had held himself back, unsure what was true with her and what wasn’t. It was no fault of hers—it was her job to lie, and to lie well—but with Bucky things were just so _easy._

“There’s loads of places we could go now,” said Bucky as they left. “But, uh, I have no idea what you’d be interested in.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “Um, art?”

“Art,” Bucky repeated. “Yeah, artsy city like this, that shouldn’t be too hard. Wanna leave this old dead history behind and hit some museums filled with old dead art?”

“Art’s never dead,” Steve protested.

“Sure, sure.” Bucky grinned. “Around here, there's tons of places. There's a modern art museum, one of 3D Illusions, one of cartoons...”

“The, uh, cartoon one sounds good,” said Steve. He hesitated, then added, “Jerk.”

“Punk,” said Bucky happily. “Let’s go.”

Bucky took him back to his car and they went to the Cartoon Art Museum. It was a tiny museum, but Steve listened to Bucky talk about the inspirations and influences of various comic books heroes, how they impacted and shaped society and media, and what their legacies were. It was exactly the kind of thing Steve was interested in, but he didn’t know as much as Bucky, since he’d never really spent time looking into it. Instead he jumped in where he could, listened avidly when he couldn’t, and barely realized the time flying past them as their conversation flowed.

Bucky just had so much _life_ to him, Steve thought as he lingered over a sculpture of Superman. He was so passionate about so many things, it kind of blew Steve’s mind.

Steve might have been like that, once. He had always liked art and he wondered, briefly if he could pick it back up, maybe ask Bucky to take him places to sketch.

But there was no point. Steve would be dead before he got a chance to make anything actually good.

So he tucked away any desire to pick up the pencil and inks seriously again and instead listened to Bucky talk about cartoons in World War Two, which turned out to be a surprisingly interesting topic.

“So, yeah, they made a hero that could actually punch Hitler in the face,” Bucky said as he gestured to a blue-clad hero with a shield. “Because it was against Superman’s morals. Superman would have just brought Hitler to the UN to be tried before a court, and people didn’t want that, they wanted _blood_. Thus, Corporal America.”

“Catchy name,” said Steve.

Bucky shrugged. “He kinda hung up the shield after the war ended, but they made a few genuinely horrible movies of him in the eighties. Seriously, those things are _gold._ ”

“I almost don’t want to watch,” Steve mused. “Like a trainwreck.”

“We should watch them,” Bucky said, rubbing his hands together.

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Maybe.”

It was a good day out. He and Bucky lingered in the museum for a little bit longer before returning to Bucky’s car.

As Bucky dropped Steve back off at his hotel, Steve took a moment to look at Bucky, who looked right back at Steve, his expression soft and content. When Bucky saw Steve looking back at him, his mouth began to open slightly, and that was Steve’s cue to leave.

“Thanks,” said Steve awkwardly as he got out of the car. “I had a lot of fun.”

“I’m glad.” Bucky leaned back slightly, so part of his face was in the shadow of the car. “Let me know if you want to see more, huh? Hope I didn’t bore you too bad.”

“You didn’t,” said Steve.

Bucky smiled that bright smile that _did_ things to Steve’s poor heart, then drove off.

“Damn it,” Steve sighed. There went his plan to lay low and not get attached.

He had less than three months. If he left with a month before the decryption was ended, it would be fine. He would just be that one tourist who breezed into and out of Bucky’s life, and Bucky would move on.

Steve nodded. New plan, then. He had a little over a month to spend with Bucky, then he would vanish.

He just hoped he would be strong enough by the end of his stay in San Francisco to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely happy with this chapter, but I really don't know how to fix it. I might tinker with it at some point. Things should be picking up a bit more in the next chapter or two, though!


	7. Chapter 7

Before Steve realized it, two weeks had passed.

Two weeks of trying to crack Howard’s decryption program, of moving his decoy around, of keeping Leviathan off Peggy and Sousa’s trail, and of counting down the days he had left to live.

But it was also two weeks of going to the Comic Lounge once or twice a week. Sometimes Steve participated, sometimes he didn’t, but everytime he enjoyed watching Bucky up on that stage.

It was two weeks of going around to interesting places with Bucky and getting to see a part of the world he had never been to before, like the tide pools at the beach. Steve knew nothing about sealife and beaches, but Bucky knew so much and told Steve about the wildlife and tides in between making sure Steve didn’t fall into the water.

It was two weeks of going to _Smashing Coffee_ and chatting with various people there and growing, slowly and steadily, more and more fond of all these weirdly wonderful people (who began to gift him with the most bizarre joke glasses they could find after Steve bought a third pair that looked like they had eyeballs swimming in the oily depths. Steve accepted all of their “donations” with a huffed laugh and a muttered “Thanks”).

He saw Sam often at the cafe, and even if Sam was in a hurry to get to one of his sessions, he always made sure to say hi to Steve. Sometimes, when Sam had a bit more time, they sat around a table and talked.

“Yeah, it’s hard, recovery,” Sam said once, and Steve wondered if Sam was purposefully shooting him a look. “It’s hard to move on from a mission, to let go and find a new purpose.”

Steve shrugged and nodded under Sam’s gaze and said, “I’ve heard the stories.”

“Sometimes it just takes time,” Sam agreed. “And will.”

Steve had all the will in the world to complete his mission, which he couldn’t, no matter how much he was growing to love this tiny corner of the world, abandon. To abandon his mission was to doom the world, and Steve honest-to-God wished he was joking about that.

He also got to know Bruce, the cafe owner, a bit better, and didn’t know if he was surprised or not to learn that Bruce was actually a nuclear physicist with an emphasis in certain types of radiation.

“And you work at a cafe?” Steve asked one day, confused.

“It helps me manage my anger issues,” said Bruce calmly. “I work part time at college on the other side of the city, but mostly I’m working on a paper right now on the effects of gamma radiation.”

Steve whistled. “Nice.”

Bruce offered him a little smile. “It’s interesting. For me, that is.”

“I’d get lost,” Steve admitted. He hadn’t even finished high school.

“Most people would,” Bruce assured him. “It’s a pretty specialized field. Tony’s been looking into radiation for various projects. He’s branching out and experimenting with various fuels for clean energy.”

Bruce didn’t often work the counter, and Steve saw Kate more often than not, along with two other teenagers, Peter and Kamala. They were all friends, and most of the time they bantered together quite happily, but they also got into squabbles that had a tendency to … escalate. It only happened two times that Steve saw. The three of them, when put together, were chaos embodied, and Steve saw more than one spoon go flying, followed by a loud, “OW!” while the culprits snickered. 

This would devolve into a fight between the baristas that Clint, if he was present, would only encourage. This first time a fight broke out, the day after Bucky gave him his first tour, Bruce poked his head out and set them to order.

The second time, though, about midway through the next week, Bruce wasn’t around. While Steve and Clint watched, a redheaded woman stood patiently at the counter while the three teens, oblivious to her presence, were arguing over the blender and jabbing at each other with straws.

Just as Kate was grabbing onto the foam nozzle and Peter was dropping to the floor to dodge a jab from Kamala’s straw, the woman said, “Ex _cuse_ me.”

“Ms. Potts!” Peter squeaked, jumping to his feet. Kate immediately lowered the nozzle and Kamala hid the straw behind her back.

“You’ve all made a mess of this place,” Ms. Potts said. “Peter, get a mop, clean up the floor. You got juice all over the matt. Kamala, I see that. Get those dishes clean. I don’t care whose turn it is, you never jab a potential weapon at someone’s face. Kate, I’d like a low-fat latte and once you’re done with that, you can clean all the counters. Spraying your friends at work is a _terrible_ idea.”

“Yes, Ms. Potts,” the teens said and hurried off to do as she asked while Ms. Potts pulled out her phone, typed a message, then glared at Clint.

“I hope you step in next time, Clint,” she said icily. “You’re the _adult_ in the room.”

“It’s Bruce’s job,” Clint protested.

“I don’t care,” Ms. Potts said, typing another message. “Step in next time or I’m putting you on babysitting duty.”

“These kids are great, that’s cool,” said Clint.

“Babysitting duty with _Tony,_ ” Ms. Potts clarified.

“Aww, no,” Clint whined.

Ms. Potts smiled at him, handed her change to Kate, picked up her drink, then strode away, typing one-handed with a speed that truly impressed Steve.

That was how he met Pepper Potts, and Steve couldn’t decide if he wanted Peggy to meet her or keep the two as far away from one another as he could.

“Pepper’s something else,” Clint mused, texting on his phone. “Tasha wants to know if you saw Kamala go for the biscotti. Says that’s when things get _really_ fun.”

“Tasha?” Steve asked.

“Natasha,” Clint clarified, as if that clarified anything.

Steve leveled a flat stare at him, eyebrow raised. “Who?”

“What?” Clint flailed. “No one told you? I thought for sure Bucky would have mentioned her.”

“Uh,” said Steve. “No? He hasn’t?”

“Oh.” Clint shrugged, dropped his phone, picked it up, and shrugged again. “Natasha’s a friend of ours. She, uh, does stuff.”

“How specific,” said Steve dryly.

Clint shrugged again. He had a few fresh scrapes on his face. Steve didn’t think he’d ever met a more accident-prone person in his life. “She bounces from one project to another.”

“Does she live here?” Steve asked, wondering it Natasha was one of the people he passed on the street, unsuspecting.

“Sometimes.” Clint’s phone chimed, and he squinted down at the screen. “Right now, though, she’s in Bombay.”

“Wow, okay,” said Steve. “Vacation?”

“Something like that,” said Clint vaguely, and the matter was dropped.

On the third week of his stay, Steve got to see the Howlies—or the Howling Commandos, as they were officially called—spar.

Steve wasn’t an expert at fighting—that had been Philips—but he’d watched the old soldier enough to know good fighters when he saw them, and he saw a lot in front of him.

After Bucky had led him down into the lower basement of Clint’s apartment building where there was a massive training room (a yeah, there were two basements, but the first was laundry and a regular gym), he shooed Steve off to the side while everyone paired off.

Bucky and Clint headed off to one side of the room where a shooting range lay. They alternated between knives, guns, and, strangely, a bow and arrows.

The other Howlies went to the other side of the room, where a ring was set up. They took turns fighting, and Steve absently noted that each of the men was proficient in a specific type of fighting style: Dum Dum boxed, Morita did Judo, Gabe did Aikido, Dernier did something that Steve thought was Muay Thai, and Monty seemed to specialize in weapons, though his “weapons” tended to be ordinary, everyday objects, mixed with Krav Maga. Seriously, Steve never knew a stuffed animal could be so dangerous until he saw Monty get his hands on it. Philips would have been impressed.

The session went on for nearly two hours, and though Bucky and some of the Howlies tried to rope Steve into joining them, he declined each time.

“Fighting and me don’t get along,” he insisted. “Seriously, asthma attack.”

“Well, we hate to leave you out,” Morita said after Steve’s third rebuffal. “Hey, I know! Yo, Bucky!”

Bucky paused from throwing darts with Clint, each trying to one-up the other on ridiculous shots. “Yeah?”

“Improv with Noam?” Morita suggested.

Bucky lit up. “Hey, yeah! What’cha say, Noam?”

“Uh,” said Steve. “I have … no idea what to do?”

“No one does,” Dum Dum called. “That’s why it’s called improv!”

“Okay, okay, break,” said Bucky. “Steve, you wanna?”

“Sure?” Steve had no idea there were improv games, and he was surprised with how quickly the Howlies jumped on the idea.

“What should we play?” Monty asked.

“Comercial?” Gabe suggested.

“Soap,” Morita said. “That one needs multiple people.”

“Maybe too complicated,” Bucky mused.

“Switcheroo!” Dum Dum cried.

“No,” Morita and Gabe groaned.

“Oui,” Dernier said.

“Yeah, that’d be fun,” Bucky said. “Nice and easy. Dum Dum, wanna start us off? Cool. Clint, suggestions?”

Clint looked over from where he was hauling himself up into the rafters. “Uh, check out clerk and annoying customer.”

“Hell yeah,” said Dum Dum. “I’ll be the customer!”

“Who wants to join him?” Bucky asked.

“Me!” volunteered Dernier.

Bucky headed over to sit next to Steve while the other Howlies settled down to watch. Steve stiffened as Bucky settled down right next to him, their sides pressing up against each other.

“You good?” Bucky murmured.

“Yeah.” Steve’s voice sounded strangled. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, what is this game?”

“Two people play two roles. Halfway through, they switch,” Bucky explained.

Before them, Dum Dum was miming reading a magazine while Dernier, pretending to push a cart, approached him.

“Hey, mister,” said Dernier. “I ‘ave ‘ere some stuff to buy, please help, s’il vous plaît.”

Dum Dum held up a finger. “Hold on, I gotta know the Dolphin’s score.”

“Hey, débile, this is your job!” Dernier said. “Idiot!”

Bucky snickered, and Steve tried hard to ignore the way Bucky moved against him. It was … not going too well. Bucky was, in general, very distracting, and Steve had a hard time focusing on what Dernier and Dum Dum were saying when Bucky’s scent was in his nose, his arm was pressed against Steve’s arm, and his laughter was in Steve’s good ear.

“Actor switch!” Clint shouted, causing Steve to jump a little.

“You good?” Bucky asked.

“Startled me,” said Steve as Dernier and Dum Dum switched places. Dum Dum said, “It’s just, that mustache doesn’t work with that hair cut, you know?”

Dernier touched his mustache. “What you speak about? It looks fabulous.”

“Yeah, but if you really want a good mustache, you gotta wax it,” said Dum Dum.

“I’ll wax your face,” said Dernier. “I’ll wax it right off, putain d'idiot.”

“No name calling,” Dum Dum protested. “I’m a paying customer!”

“Not paid yet,” said Dernier smugly.

“Bunch of baboons,” Bucky muttered to Steve.

“Your friends,” Steve reminded him.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed. “They’re good people.”

Dum Dum and Dernier were currently in a screaming match, egged on by everyone else. Steve had no idea what anyone was saying, their voices overlapped too much, but he was pretty sure the improv skit had been completely forgotten as Dernier insulted Dum Dum’s mustache and Dum Dum threatened to hide all the food in Dernier’s house.

“They’re real good at making first impressions,” Bucky added, eyes twinkling with amusement.

Steve let out a soundless huff and said, “They basically kidnapped me from the Lounge.”

“Did they?” Bucky’s eyebrows raised.

“Well, I could have left,” Steve amended. “But Monty scared the crap out of me.”

“Of course he did,” Bucky said. “Monty really like channeling his inner Bond villains.”

“Aaand, cut!” Clint shouted. “You all suck! Next!”

“Oh, fuck off, Clint!” Dum Dum said. “We ain’t no comedians!”

“Yeah, get the actual comedian up there!” Gabe shouted. “Buck-y! Buck-y! Buck-y!”

The others joined in the chant, and Bucky rolled his eyes, looking over at Steve. “What say you, Noam? Wanna join me in a little improv?”

“Sure,” said Steve, only to be interrupted by his phone ringing. It wasn’t the ringtone of the phone he used with Bucky and so, heart pounding, he pulled out the other phone, swiping the ‘End Call’ button.

“Everything okay?” Bucky asked.

“Work,” said Steve tightly. “I gotta go. Boss and all.”

“That’s cool,” said Bucky, but Steve was already hurrying up the steps.

Steve tried to ignore the burn in his lungs and the constricting feeling in his chest as he rushed back to his hotel as fast as his stupid legs and stupid lungs could manage.

Sousa sent him a text that read **OFF KITE FLYING** , which was just code for, _please hurry up._

“I’m going, I’m going,” Steve gasped as he punched the button for the elevator, hopping from foot to foot as he waited for the elevator to arrive.

By the time he made it to his room, he tried very hard not to die from wheezing, and he sucked down a puff from his inhaler before calling Sousa back.

“Nomad,” Sousa said. “I need you to locate the nearest store of mannitol and dilantin.”

“I’m on it, Pegleg,” Steve said, grabbing his shiny silver computer. “How’s she doing?”

“Seizure,” Sousa said grimly.

“Fuck,” Steve said, fingers flying, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder.

“I gave her the last of a dilantin we have, but it’s not enough.”

“Has she woken up at all?” Steve asked.

“Nope.”

“Okay, here,” said Steve. “There’s a drugstore on the corner of Birch and Albion, _Glory Pharmacy_. They have both drugs. I’m hacking into their system, a Mr. Gary Oldson placed an order for them two weeks ago, pick-up in fifteen minutes.”

The line went dead.

Steve let out a shaky breath and let the phone drop, squeezing his eyes closed.

“Come on, Peggy,” he muttered. “Fight this. Please wake up.”

It was nearing evening, so Steve placed an order for room service, ate mechanically, and lay in bed, willing sleep to come to him. Sousa texted him around nine to let him know Peggy had stabilized again, and Steve simply closed the messenger and went back to staring up at the darkness.

Sleep didn’t come until the wee hours of the morning, when his exhausted mind and body finally succumbed to the pull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh ... I know nothing about the medicines discussed except for what I've researched on the Internet, and let's pretend what Steve did was a valid way of getting them (which isn't how it works at all, but sshh, fiction).  
> This chapter was kind of filler-y, but things will start picking up next chapter or so.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Steve! Welcome to my ill-timed chapter, because I do actually have a birthday chapter for him later on in the fic, but we're not quite there yet, RIP. Anyway, sorry for the delay, I figured today was a good time to post. Next chapter will be up Monday or Tuesday!

The next day marked the forth week of Steve’s stay in San Francisco, and it was a gloomy grey day. Steve was feeling cranky as he rolled out of bed with a massive pounding headache.

Coffee. He needed coffee.

With that in mind, he dressed in shaggy pants, a dinosaur-print button-up, and his leather jacket, slipping his feet into his boots as he slung his ratty messenger bag across his body, the familiar weight of the battered laptop inside resting against his hip. He dragged his fingers through his hair, wincing at how long it was becoming, and then scratched at his chin, where the barest beginnings of a beard tickled the tips of his fingers.

He sighed and dropped his hand away. He’d deal with that later. He trudged grimly out of his room.

 _Smashing Coffee_ wasn’t busy, which Steve was intensely thankful for.

“Hey, Noam!” said Peter.

“Coffee,” Steve croaked. “Black. And a pastry.”

“Sure,” said Peter. “Late night? Was there a lot of alcohol? Strippers?”

Steve squinted at him through sunglasses in the French flag colors with the Eiffel Tower poking up on one side. They had been a gift from Dernier.

“No,” he said once Peter’s comment worked its way through his brain. “Late night working on a work project.”

“Adult life,” Peter, the teenager, said sagely. “Black coffee, coming right up!”

“Woah, woah, woah, hey,” said Sam from behind Steve. “Noam, you look like hell. Wanna liven up your order, just once? My treat?”

Steve, who had been consuming the cheapest coffee ever thanks to Philips since he was sixteen, squinted warily at Sam. “Like what?”

“Like the Cortado,” said Sam. “I get that a lot. It’s good, man.”

“...Sure,” said Steve.

“Two Cortados, Pete,” said Sam.

“You got it, Mr. Wilson,” chirped Peter.

“Just Sam, kid.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Wilson!”

Sam laughed and looked over at Steve. “You okay?”

“Late night,” Steve muttered.

“I hear you,” said Sam. “They got reruns of _Gossip Girl_ and it doesn’t matter _what_ I gotta do the next day, you know?”

“Never seen _Gossip Girl_ ,” said Steve.

“What? The horror.” Sam grinned. “I’d say guilty pleasure, but I don’t believe in that. Either you like it or you don’t, and you shouldn’t have to defend it against anyone.”

“I always liked those _Scooby-Doo_ live action movies,” Steve volunteered. “I mean, the cartoons all the way, but those movies are just hilarious.” Not that he’d seen them recently. Maybe he’d think they were horrible now. Steve couldn’t even remember the last movie he’d even seen. Maybe it had been that movie with the journalist with the weird name—Tin Tin?—when it’d come out three years ago. He knew Peggy had dragged him to that, and they occasionally had movie nights of older movies since then, but he didn’t know if he’d seen anything new since, after the Reborns had been dragged deep into hunting Leviathan.

Sam raised his hands. “Never saw them, but hey, to each their own.”

“Here you go, Mr. Wilson!” Peter called from the other end of the counter.

“Thanks, Peter,” said Sam. “Or should I say Mr. Parker?”

Peter’s eyes got wide. “Are you my teacher now?”

Sam pointed a finger at him. “Watch it, kid.”

Peter laughed and hurried off to help more customers.

“Let’s sit outside,” Sam suggested. “Fresh air, vitamin D.”

“Works for me,” said Steve.

They headed outside, and Steve was glad for his stupid sunglasses, since the blinding midmorning light would have been too much to bear without them.

“Here,” said Sam, sitting down in one of the metal chairs. “So, I take it you got your project done?”

“I did,” said Steve, groaning slightly as he sat down next to Sam. “Took me hours, but it’s done.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Sam. “I haven’t had a project like that since college. Perks of counseling, you know?”

“You did college after you left the army?” Steve asked.

“Sure did,” said Sam. “Even thinking of going back, becoming a fully-licensed therapist.”

“You’d be good at that,” said Steve.

“Thanks, Noam.” Sam took a sip of his coffee. “My ma wants me to go live back in D.C., be closer to her. Not a bad idea, she’s getting on in years. Maybe in the next two or three years I’ll do that.”

Steve nodded and took a sip of his Cort-whatever and blinked at the taste, which was better than he’d thought coffee _could_ taste.

“Man, you ever drink anything other than black coffee?” Sam asked, studying Steve’s expression.

“No,” said Steve defensively. “And I put sugar in my coffees.”

“That’s like a crime,” said Sam. “You like it?”

Steve clutched the cup to his chest and said, “ _Fuck_ yes.”

Sam laughed, throwing his head back. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“It tastes so _good,_ ” said Steve wonderingly.

“That it does!”

Steve took another sip and let himself enjoy the taste, then swallowed and said seriously, “Thanks, Sam.”

Sam sobered, though a glimmer of humor played about his face. “No problem, Noam. Hey, what are your plans for the future?”

To die very soon, but Sam wasn’t going to know that. Instead Steve tried to lie with as much truth as he could, since he’d never gotten the hang of blatant lying.

“I’m gonna do a bit more travel, quit eventually, and then I’m gonna figure out what to do next.”

Sam nodded. “You’ll do something that makes you happy?”

Steve looked at him blankly.

“You … do know what makes you happy, right?” asked Sam.

 _Bucky,_ was Steve’s first thought, and he ruthlessly ground that thought out of his head.

“That’s why I’m gonna quit,” he said instead. “This job, it sucks up a lot of my time. I used to draw, you know. And I got really good at that. But, uh, I don’t have a lot of time for that anymore.”

Sam nodded. “Everyone needs something that makes them happy,” he said. “Something they’re passionate about. It’s the only way to make life bearable in the long run, you know?”

“You psycho-analyzing me?” Steve asked suspiciously.

“Hell no, you’re not paying me,” said Sam, grinning. “But no, this is me, as a friend, trying to check in on you.”

Steve swallowed. “We’re friends?”

“Hell yeah, man,” said Sam. “I don’t order just anyone delicious coffee.”

Steve cracked a grin, tried not to look like he was dying a little inside, and said, “Thanks, it’s great.”

“Hey, Noam!”

Steve looked around and saw Bucky waving from across the street. He waved back.

Sam followed his gaze. “Barnes, huh?”

“Bucky’s great,” said Steve as Bucky headed in their direction.

“Not saying he’s not,” said Sam. “Just don’t know him very well. I try to avoid people with a lot of money.”

“Bucky’s rich?” Steve asked, surprised.

“Nah, probably not super rich, but he works for Stark,” said Sam. “I mean, how much richer can you get?”

“I don’t wanna know,” said Steve. “Anything over a million is too rich.”

“Amen,” said Sam as Bucky made it over to them.

“Hey, Noam,” he said, smiling.

“Hi, Bucky.” Steve grinned back up at Bucky.

Sam cleared his throat.

Steve started. “Right. Bucky, uh, do you know Sam?”

“Wilson, right?” Bucky asked, sticking out his hand.

“Yep.” Sam shook his hand. “Heard about you. You do stand up?”

“Once or twice a week,” said Bucky. “Nothing special.”

“We got a Robin Williams here, and he says ‘nothing special’,” Sam said, rolling his eyes at Steve. “Can you believe this guy?”

“Hey!” Bucky said while Steve let out a laugh.

“Did you want something, Bucky?” Steve asked.

“Nah, I just wanted to see if you were free and wanted to go someplace,” said Bucky.

“And that’s my cue,” said Sam, standing up.

“You don’t need to leave,” Steve protested.

“Not like I’m not gonna see you again soon, Noam,” said Sam. “Anyway, I gotta go pick Riley up from work. Got his car totaled last week.”

“He okay?” Steve asked.

“Yeah.” Sam shook his head. “He might be my childhood best friend and all, but the man’s an utter idiot. Anyway, see you, Noam.” He tossed Steve a wink and a grin and Steve tried not to roll his eyes fondly.

“Bye, Sam.” Steve watched Sam walk away, then glanced over at Bucky, who gave him a little smile.

“Sorry if I was interrupting something,” said Bucky.

“Nothing important,” said Steve as he stood up, ratty messenger bag knocking into his knees, his amazing coffee clutched in one hand. “So, where too?”

“We’re gonna go down to Fisherman’s Wharf,” said Bucky, leading Steve over to the apartment buildings where Bucky’s car sat in the garage out back. “You’ll see from there.”

Bucky’s excursion, it turned out, was to Alcatraz.

The island loomed in the middle of the bay, waves crashing into rocks. The bleak prison on it was grimy and looked utterly lonely on the rocks. They took a ferry out to it, and Steve remembered just how much he hated being on a boat.

“It was made into a prison in 1934,” Bucky murmured to him. “Disbanded in 1963. Al Capone was incarcerated here.”

“Huh,” said Steve, focusing on Bucky’s voice instead of the way his stomach rolled. “For bootlegging?”

“Tax evasion,” said Bucky.

“You know a lot about a lotta things,” said Steve.

“Great way to be a comedian is to know a lot of things,” Bucky said as the ferry pulled up to a dock. “Gives you a bigger well to draw on, so to speak.”

The prison was a bleak on the inside as it was on the outside, and Steve could barely wrap his mind around sentencing anyone to serve time here as he stared at the horrible, tiny cells and the dull lifeless walls.

“Jesus,” he muttered as he eyed the bars of one cell.

“There were a lot of really bad men put here,” was all Bucky said.

“Yeah, but,” Steve looked around. “They were still human, right?”

“Depends on your definition of human,” said Bucky slowly. “I know a lot of people who would quibble with you on that matter.”

“And you?” Steve raised his eyebrow.

“I’d hate to put anyone here,” Bucky admitted. “People don’t deserve to get treated like things, to be stored away and forgotten about.”

Steve looked around and tried to imagine staying in here for years, maybe even decades. It was depressingly easy to, since Steve was technically a criminal hacker, and he shuddered at the images his imagination rendered for him. Bones jutting out of paper-thin, sun-deprived skin, sunken eyes, harsh clothes. He could almost taste the misery and despair on his tongue.

Bucky caught the shiver and leaned down towards Steve’s good ear—and since when had Bucky learned which ear was his good ear?—and whispered, “Let’s … Let’s get outta here. There’s some good views, outside.”

Which was how Steve and Bucky found themselves strolling along the outside of the fortress, staring out at the bay, the city, and the Golden Gate bridge. Flowers grew along the sides of the walls, their blossoms adding a bit of color to the otherwise dull landscape.

“Sorry,” Bucky said quietly. “I know this … uh, isn’t exactly a cheerful place to go. But I thought it was important.”

“I think it was,” croaked Steve.

Bucky shot him a worried look. “You seem to have taken it kinda, uh, hard.”

Steve shrugged, bit his tongue, thought for a moment, then said, “I just have an active imagination. But, Buck, you’re showing me something you think is amazing, and I think it’s amazing you’re sharing it with me. Thank you.”

Bucky looked away slightly, and Steve was delighted to see a faint blush on his cheeks. “Thanks, Noam. The Howlies aren't particularly interested in this sort of thing, you know?”

“I am,” Steve offered, feeling a bit better now. “Show me whatever, it's nice to see what you're passionate about.”

Bucky bumped their shoulders in thanks, grinning. But the grin slid off his face quickly.

Steve squinted at him from behind his weird glasses. “There something else?”

Bucky fidgeted and sighed. “So, uh, I got something to tell you.”

Steve glanced at him warily out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah?”

“Tony’s going to Geneva for five days. Plane leaves tonight. He’s taking us Howlies with him for protection.”

Steve’s throat closed. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Bucky scrubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, I just wanted you to, uh, know.”

That was almost a full week. Steve almost choked over the lost time, the precious little time remaining with Bucky flashing before his eyes.

“Oh,” he said again, and he was well aware his voice sounded strangled.

“Noam?”

Steve glanced over to see Bucky looking at him, concerned.

“It’s fine,” he said and cleared his throat. “Uh, that’s cool. Take lots of pictures, okay?”

“I will,” Bucky said, and it looked like he wanted to say something else, but eventually he said nothing.

“Let’s go back,” said Steve, turning away from the view.

“Okay,” Bucky said quietly.

“And then let’s get ice cream.” Steve glanced over his shoulder. “Make the most of the rest of this afternoon, alright?”

Bucky’s 100-watt smile dawned across his face, bright and slow and utterly beautiful, and Steve thought, _Oh, fuck,_ as Bucky said, “Yeah, alright, Noam.”

Steve had to look away from that smile. It was far too blinding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: CLINT!


	9. Chapter 9

A knock on Steve’s door startled him enough that he almost threw the battered laptop across the room.

Thankfully, he managed to avoid that catastrophe and instead shut it carefully and slipped it into his messenger bag. Then he got up and crossed the room, peering carefully through the peephole.

Clint was on the other side, sporting a beautiful black eye and a bandaged nose.

Steve frowned and opened the door. “Clint?”

Clint lit up. “Noam! Hey. I was hoping this was your room and not some busy couple.” He waggled his eyebrows, then winced.

Steve snorted. “Nope. Just me. What’re you doing here? How’d you even know this was my room?”

“I guessed,” said Clint. “Good, defensible room. Anyway, I’m here to ask if you wanna go to my basement.”

Steve carefully set the first part of the sentence aside—Clint was no dummy, and Steve had no doubt that Clint maybe knew there was _something_ up with him—and instead said, “You do know how bad that sounds, right?”

Clint frowned. “To shoot stuff.”

“That just sounds even worse.”

Clint threw up his hands. “You’ve been moping for three days! Look, Bucky and the others come back tomorrow, jazz hands and all that, but the rest of us miss you, too!”

Steve blinked. “Uh, you do?”

Clint gave him a deadpan stare and shoved something in Steve’s direction. Steve, startled, took it without looking, then examined it once it was in his hands.

It was a pair of glasses with blue-tinted lenses with a little nose coming down the middle. It would clash horribly with his newly-dyed purple hair. Steve looked back up at Clint, unimpressed.

Clint shrugged with a shit-eating grin on his face. “I saw them and thought of you.”

“Har, har,” said Steve, but slipped them on anyway, suddenly aware that that was the first time any of his new frie— _acquaintances_ —had seen him without some sort of glasses on his face.

“Anyway, grab your stuff and let’s go,” said Clint. “I’m not letting you waste your _whole_ time stewing in this room waiting for Bucky to return.”

“I’m not stewing,” Steve protested, but ducked back inside to get his messenger bag and leather jacket.

“Sure, sure, or whatever the kids are calling it these days,” said Clint.

“Ass,” Steve grumbled as he exited the room.

“I’ve been called worse,” Clint said cheerfully as Steve shut the door behind him. “Let’s go!”

Steve had, actually, been kind of hiding from the world and all its inhabitants since Bucky left, because he had no idea what to do with the fact that he was, of all possible things, _attracted to Bucky_. That shouldn’t, _couldn’t_ , happen. It was utterly unfair to Bucky, because even if, on the wild off-hand-chance Bucky returned his feelings, Steve would be leaving soon and Bucky would never, ever see him again.

His stupid _feelings_ couldn’t get in the way of his mission.

During the twenty minute walk it took to get from Steve’s hotel to Clint’s apartment buildings, Steve got to listen to Clint recount dozens of stories from the time he apparently joined the secret service, to when he and his ex-wife got into a massive, city-wide fight where they both raced across rooftops shooting Nerf arrows at each other and screaming profanities, to the fact that his dog, Lucky, apparently ate too much pizza the night before and his entire apartment was a toxic wasteland.

When they finally got down to the lower basement, Steve almost knew more about Clint than he knew about Peggy, though to be fair, it was Peggy’s job to be secretive.

On the other side of the room were several of _Smashing Coffee_ ’s disposable coffee cups all lined up, ready to be shot at.

“Is there anything in them?” Steve asked, squinting out at them.

“There is in one of them.” Clint grinned. “First person to find out which gets treated to lunch by the other.”

“Deal,” said Steve.

“Anyway, you ever shoot?” Clint asked.

Steve had, but he said, “No,” because even if Clint thought he was suspicious, it was probably better to be suspicious and not know how to fire a gun than the other way around.

“Well, it’s not too hard,” said Clint. “Here, lemme show you.”

Clint went over everything from grip to stance to aiming, and he was a surprisingly good teacher.

Despite being a good shot, Steve missed the first couple on purpose and skewed the few shots he did hit. Clint, meanwhile, never hit where he didn’t want to and seemed more content watching Steve apparently struggle while texting someone on his phone. Steve hoped it wasn’t Bucky, and he hoped Clint wasn’t taking videos of him.

“Hey, Noam,” said Clint while Steve hit his fifth cup off-center. Steve lowered his gun and looked at Clint, who was looking down at his phone. “Tasha wants to know if you’re going out with Bucky yet.”

Steve carefully engaged the safety. “What? Why?”

Clint shrugged. “She gets protective of him. Ha, she just texted me telling me … I didn’t have to tell you. Oh. Whoops.”

“It’s none of her business,” said Steve. “I like my privacy, thanks.”

“Privacy’s pretty great,” Clint agreed. “I’ll just tell her to not be nosy. Hey, bet you I can shoot a coffee cup hanging upside down and backwards.”

“No bet,” said Steve dryly.

“Damn it,” said Clint. “I _knew_ letting you see us spar first was a terrible idea. Damn Bucky and his stupid crush.”

Steve ignored him. “You gonna tell me who gave you that shiner?”

Clint shrugged. “One of the Lorn brothers. They owned this building before I won it from them fair-ish and square, but they keep coming after me. That was before Tony built his ugly mansion and the street turned semi-nice.”

Steve had a hard time imagining a time when the street _wasn’t_ nice. “Can’t you do anything?”

“Tried,” said Clint. “Can’t get anything to stick. Besides, it’s not like my record’s squeaky clean either. If I get them, they might bring me down with them, and I can’t do that to my tenants. They’ve got nowhere else to go.”

There was a lump in his throat. “You’re a good person,” he said.

Clint turned down his hearing aids. “Say what?”

Steve rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird.

Clint turned his hearing aids back up. “You gonna shoot anymore?”

“Nah, I think I’m done,” Steve admitted.

Clint picked up his bow and arrows and proceeded to take out the rest of the coffee cups. The last one leaked pink glitter.

“Would you look at that?” Clint winked at him. “Seems like I won. Lunchtime, your treat!”

Steve laughed and said, “Sure thing.”

“Aw, it’s not so bad,” said Clint, looping an arm around Steve’s shoulder and steering him towards the stairs. “Bucky’ll be back tomorrow, after all!”

“Shut up, Clint.”

“Shutting up.”

Clint took him to a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant off one side of the hill towards the bottom. It was greasy and stank faintly of smoke, but the waitress was friendly enough and greeted Clint by name before showing them to a window booth.

“The usual?” the waitress asked.

“Please,” said Clint, slumping back into the booth with a groan.

“This is a nice place,” Steve ventured.

Clint’s lips tugged upwards. “One of the older places that hasn’t been weeded out by the high prices yet.”

“I like it,” said Steve. “Uh, so.”

Clint laughed and pulled out a pair of chopsticks from the kiosk. “You’re so awkward! This isn’t, like, a _date_ , Noam.” Steve felt Clint nudged his knee. “Where’re you from, Noamy boy?”

“Brooklyn,” said Steve.

“Iowa,” said Clint, and laughed at whatever expression Steve pulled. “I tell you, Noam, you’re hilarious.”

“So what do you do?” Steve asked, bulldozing forward and trying not to think about how red his face must look. “Besides owning a building and getting beat up?”

Clint shrugged. “Kinda whatever? I mean, we all have our skill sets.” Clint began twirling his chopsticks between his fingers. “Like me, for instance. I’m terrible at staying outta trouble, but I’m not too bad at getting myself, or others,” Steve didn’t imagine Clint’s eyes flashing up to meet his, did he? “outta trouble, y’know?”

Steve forced himself to swallow smoothly. “Well, that’s good.”

Clint grinned, easy again, the weird tension vanishing as quickly as it’d come, leaving Steve feeling a bit more wary of the apparently easy-going guy in front of him.

“So,” said Clint. “Want me to tell you about the time I ate ten massive bags of Cheetos on a dare and barfed all over my ex-wife’s wedding cake?”

It was a thoughtful Steve that said goodbye to Clint an hour later and wandered slowly back in the direction of his hotel.

It seemed like Clint knew there was something going on with him, which was … well, Steve didn’t know if it was good or not, because he didn’t know what Clint would do. The man was an absolute wildcard.

Somehow, for _some_ reason, Steve had managed to fall in with a group of highly trained people when he should have been an anonymous face in a crowd of normal people. They were good people, fun people, but they could seriously endanger Steve’s mission if they decided to pry into his business and figure out just who he was and what he was up to.

He had the worst luck.

If Clint was onto him … was Bucky? Were the Howlies? Did they all think he was suspicious? Was that why Bucky was hanging out with him?

No, Steve told himself sternly. He knew very well the difference between faking emotions and being genuine. Enough people had treated him with fake interest as a kid whenever his mom had brought him into work, and Peggy had honed that ability to see people’s bullshit to a fine point. Bucky genuinely wanted to hang out with Steve (or he was the best damn actor in the _world_ ).

But that didn’t mean he didn’t also have ulterior motives.

If everyone was onto him…

Then, fuck. Steve needed to get out of here.

“Hey, Noam!”

Steve looked up, startled and wide-eyed as Sam approached him dressed in his Air Force sweatshirt and faded jeans. Just coming out of a counseling session, then.

“Sam,” he managed. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself!” Sam grinned down at him. “Just got out of a session. You hungry?”

“I just had lunch,” said Steve regretfully.

Sam shrugged, easy and warm. “Schedule conflict between us, then. How ‘bout we walk together a bit? Haven’t seen my coffee buddy for a while and I miss seeing his expression when he gets a taste of _actually_ good coffee.”

“Har, har,” said Steve dryly. “I’m just heading back to my hotel.”

“Perfect,” Sam said, and Steve returned his grin and let himself feel soothed by Sam’s latest story of the asshole building owners where his counseling group met up and what he and his mom last talked about (which was her Church’s bake sale).

Slowly, as Sam’s soothing chatter distracted him from his ever-pressing worries, Steve let himself breathe. He had a lot to think about and consider, but it could wait just a little while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Bucky and the Howlies return!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, a slight warning for some more depressing moments towards the end of the chapter. Mostly Steve's thoughts. Just, a head's up.

“So then Tony gets up there.” Dum Dum paused to belch. “An’ he said—”

“‘You won’t be a single red dime from my pockets, you liver-spotted vampires’” Bucky and Morita said together.

“I want’d to tell it!” Dum Dum protested.

“Tony was on _fire,_ ” Bucky told Steve. “He was so fucking adamant that Stark Industries _not_ return to making weapons.”

“It was epic,” Gabe agreed.

“Sounds like it,” Steve laughed and tried to hide how tense he felt, unable to shake his suspicions that the Howlies and Bucky knew he was up to something.

After Bucky and the other Howlies got back in the late afternoon on Friday, Bucky texted Steve, inviting him to go out and eat with the Howlies. Steve accepted immediately, internally berating himself for feeling disappointed it wouldn’t just be him and Bucky.

Either way, Bucky was waiting for him outside his hotel looking kind of tired. He wore dark ripped jeans and a light blue jacket over a band t-shirt that seemed slightly stained. His scruff had grown out a little and was now more of a baby beard, but he pulled it off amazingly, and Steve paused for a moment after stepping out of the door to stare at him.

When Bucky noticed him looking, something lit up in his eyes, and Steve momentarily forgot his suspicions about Bucky.

“Hi,” he said, feeling shy as he approached Bucky.

“I know, I look like shit,” said Bucky dryly. “We only landed about an hour ago.”

“You look great,” said Steve. “Where’re the others?”

“At the place already,” said Bucky. “Hope you like Indian.”

“I do,” Steve assured him.

“Awesome,” said Bucky. “I parked my car in the lot.” He jerked his head. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” said Steve, giving Bucky a small smile.

The Indian restaurant turned out to be a little hole-in-the-wall about a mile away from Steve’s hotel, not too far from the Chinese place Clint had taken him to. The Howlies inside had already ordered and were well on their way to tipsy.

“Noam!” Dum Dum boomed, opening his arms wide and nearly knocking Monty’s hat off his head. “Been _ages!_ ”

“It’s been five days, you buffoon,” Monty said, adjusting his red beret.

“Too long,” Dum Dum mourned.

“Hey, guys,” Steve said, sitting into a chair next to Bucky. “How was the trip?”

Which was what led to Dum Dum regaling Steve with every single thing Tony Stark had done on the trip, which not only included insulting would-be investors, but also somehow managing to get some other rich asshole’s car stuck in a pool and skydiving off a hot air balloon.

“What the hell?” Steve hissed at Bucky.

“Tony’s pushing forty, we think he’s freaking out about it,” Bucky whispered back.

“Oh, hey, hey Noam,” Dum Dum said. “We got you something.”

“No, don’t do this,” Monty groaned.

“Who has it?” Dum Dum demanded.

“I do,” said Morita, reaching into his pack and withdrawing—

“Oh, fuck you all,” Steve laughed.

They were massive sunglasses, even bigger than Steve’s red ones, but bright pink with green lenses and little glittering heart stickers as well as some zombie ones plastered all over the sides.

“We decorated it ourselves,” Monty said dryly. “If you couldn’t tell.”

“Thanks,” said Steve, removing his current pair of sunglasses (which were blue and made to gave off the impression of winking) and quickly sliding the new pair on.

Everyone roared with laughter.

“Perfect, perfect!” Monty kept saying.

“Brings out his eyes!” Dum Dum howled.

“Looks nice,” said Bucky, elbowing Steve.

Steve swatted his arm away. “Fuck off.”

So the night continued, and Steve got to hear more about Geneva besides Tony’s escapades and quite a few other stories as well, from the Howlies’ youths and various adventures.

“And Bucky, see, he gets super into comedy,” Monty was saying while Bucky’s face burned red. “So he was wandering around muttering, ‘Don’t deny, don’t try to be funny, tell a story’ _all the time_. I think the comedy ‘rules’ are permanently burned into our brains!”

“Hey, shuddup,” Bucky protested, a blush creeping over his face. “I get really into things.”

It was adorable, is what it was, as the other Howlies jumped on Bucky to rib him about his “serious comedian” aspirations, which Bucky vehemently denied until he managed to distract them by reminding them about Morita’s stint of experimenting with his facial hair, which sent them off grabbing for their phones and pulling up the worst photos they had of each other.

“Super into comedy, huh?” Steve muttered to him.

Bucky tried for a smirk, but his face was still tinged with red. “What can I say? I’m a passionate guy.”

Now it was Steve’s turn to flush red, and he hurriedly turned back to the Howlies’ conversation.

Still, he didn’t think it was a mistake that Bucky’s thigh was pressed up against his, warm and solid, the entire time.

“Hey, Bucky, I got one of you drooling!” Gabe said.

“Delete it!” Bucky cried at once. “I mean it, Gabe!”

“Share it!” Morita interjected. “I want it!”

“No!”

Bucky lunged for Gabe’s phone, and the table dissolved into a chaos Steve was happy to sit back at watch.

When his phone’s clock read eleven a few hours later, Steve decided to call it a night.

“I think I’m gonna head back to my hotel room,” Steve told Bucky quietly while the Howlies chatted tipsily about some sports or another (apparently, each Howlie followed a different sport and all had opinions on what the Best Sport was. Steve, knowing nothing about any sports at all, was surprisingly entertained).

“I’ll drive you back,” Bucky immediately offered.

“Please,” said Steve.

“Later Bucky!” shouted a swaying Morita. Dum Dum was engrossed in a conversation with Gabe about the merits of football versus bowling (which, was that even a sport?), and neither seemed aware that Steve and Bucky were leaving. Monty saluted them with his drink and Dernier shouted a goodbye, but the Howlies were quickly absorbed in a rousing song whose lyrics were a bit too crude for Steve’s tastes.

When Steve and Bucky stumbled out into the night air, Steve shivered slightly.

“Aw, shit, here,” said Bucky, shrugging off his jacket.

“No, I’m fine,” Steve tried to insist.

Bucky leveled a look at him. “Noam, I lived in _Russia_ for a time. I’m good, trust me. You’re stick thin.”

“Shut up,” Steve muttered, but let Bucky wrap him up in the jacket. “You lived in Russia?”

“Studied abroad,” Bucky said cheerfully. “Was how I met Natasha.”

The drive back was quiet, both content to stare out the windows, Bucky making his way steadily back to Steve’s apartment while Steve watched houses and shops and entire lives flash past them.

“Hey, Bucky?” he asked as they turned onto the street that led up the hill to the hotel.

“Yeah?”

“If you were going to die soon, what’s something you’d do?”

Bucky opened his mouth, closed it, and shot a quick look at Steve. In the darkness of the night, Steve couldn’t even begin to parse the emotions behind that look.

“Probably something really boring,” Bucky said finally, soft and with an edge that told Steve Bucky was feeling rather wary and suspicious about the question. Steve cursed himself silently. “Hang out with my loved ones, I’d say. They’re what matter, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Steve as Bucky pulled into the parking lot.

Bucky parked the car and stared at Steve for so long Steve wondered if he was going to say something. Bucky swayed closer, looking at Steve intently, and Steve swallowed hard and licked his lips, heart pounding. Was Bucky going to…?

But no, Bucky leaned back, let out a little sigh, and said, “Night, punk.”

Steve let out a shaky breath and replied quietly, “Night, jerk.”

Then he got out of the car, leaving his jacket behind, and headed back to his hotel room.

Steve was so screwed. Once he was back in his room, he shut his hotel door and slid down it, resting his back against the wood and squeezing his eyes shut. His head thunked onto his arms, draped over his curled-up knees, and he let out a shuddering sigh.

It was at times like these he really wished he could go to Erskine for advice. Or Peggy. If Peggy was awake, he knew she’d know just what to say.

But he was utterly alone. There was no one who both knew him, knew his dilemma, and who could advise him. 

He raked his bony hand through his hair and huffed a sigh.

He just wished he knew what to _do._

No matter what, he had to finish his mission. He didn’t know if Bucky, the Howlies, and the other people who were starting to be his friends in this tiny corner of the world were going to disrupt his mission. He didn’t know anything besides what _he_ had to do.

He should leave.

_Just a little while longer,_ a horribly selfish side of him begged. Just a few more days.

And Steve knew that would just make things harder for him in the long run. He knew that staying now that he was attached was a terrible, terrible idea. He knew Bucky and his friends were scarily competent and if he let anything slip, anything at all, they would be onto him and maybe (probably on accident to “protect” him) prevent him from completing his mission, thereby essentially killing millions of people.

But he also was so utterly addicted now to feeling happy and actually, genuinely laughing like he rarely had before that it scared him, a little. He didn’t know feeling happy could _feel_ so nice.

If … If he could keep up Noam Grant for just a few more days, if he could commit to his cover and hoard a few more precious moments, then…

Then he could die feeling like he’d been a real person, if just for a little bit. One who had friends, one who had good memories instead of memories of death and betrayal and pain.

Steve wanted to feel real, he wanted to feel like a person, which he hadn’t since … Since before his mom died, really.

_Just a few more days,_ that horribly selfish voice repeated.

“Just a little bit longer,” Steve whispered miserably before hauling himself to his feet and staggering towards his bed.

He just wanted to hold onto his happiness for just a little while longer.

_God,_ he was such a terrible person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter, but the next chapter is going to be ... much longer. Much, _much_ longer. And it'll also be where the plot really starts to pick up, so keep an eye out! Monday or Tuesday, let's see how it goes lol.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re about halfway through, and I cannot thank you all enough. The amazing comments and all your kudos keep me going. Thank you!!

“And that was Noam, the timeline traveling nutjob who keeps making my life unfairly interesting,” said Bucky as people clapped and whistled (though none harder than the Howlies).

Steve sat back, face burning, but pleased as he sipped his water and waited for Bucky to continue his show, which Bucky did as the clapping died down.

“You know, as a kid, I was absolutely convinced that eggs could potentially hatch at any time,” said Bucky up on the stage. “No one thought to explain to little five-year-old me that in order for chickens to hatch, a male chicken needed to be involved. I was terrified of eating eggs! But somehow I had enough cognitive dissonance on the subject to morally justify to myself that egging things like cars and trees was perfectly fine, go figure.” He shrugged and grinned.

Bucky sauntered across Comic Lounge’s stage, utterly in his element, and Steve’s eyes tracked his movements lazily. Seeing Bucky on a stage was as close to relaxation as Steve got, these days, and he carefully sipped his bottle water before screwing the cap back on as Bucky continued.

“As a kid, I was absolutely obsessed with magic tricks. Lotta people are—how many of you all here tonight were?”

A number of hands went up, and even though Bucky could likely only see a few of them, he nodded approvingly. “Exactly! Magic is _awesome_. I mean, I know a lot of people complain about it not being, like, _actual_ magic, but who cares about those naysayers, huh? Though, gotta be honest, I think the closest thing I’ve ever seen that was like real-life magic was a pair of headphones. Wires, you know. Like, I just set you down, how have you managed to loop yourselves into knots _three times?_ Magic, I swear.”

Bucky switched directions, and the pencil he twirled between his fingers flashed in the light. “Also, is it just me, or do the simplest things just knock my socks off? Like numbers. I’m no sloucher when it comes to math—I was almost recruited for the _mathletes_. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. But consider this: a million. A million is a big number—I honestly don’t think I could rattle off a million things, though I noticed we recently reached a million words in the English language. Isn’t that weird? A million words. Who knows all those words except the OED? I could make up a word right now and chances are it’d be a word in the English language and none of you people would be able to prove me wrong off the top of your head, not even you, _English Majors._ ”

Steve joined everyone in the laughter, and unlike when he had first entered the Comic Lounge, Steve’s own laughter was well-practiced and blended in with everyone else’s instead of rough and disused.

“Cower before our grammatical might!” someone from the audience shouted, and Bucky pulled a face.

“How ‘bout I don’t and say I didn’t,” he argued. “Besides, if I said, right here and now, the words ‘jejune,’ ‘ultracrepidarian,’ ‘rugart,’ and ‘turgid,’ could you tell me which one I made up?”

“No, but I bet they’re all insults!” Dum Dum shouted.

Bucky winked and grinned, then said, “You’ll never know, _Timothy_. And that’s my show for you guys tonight! Goodnight and goodbye, San Francisco!”

The cheers were loud as Bucky jogged off the stage, and Steve clapped hard.

“That was great,” he heard Monty say below him.

Steve leaned over the balcony and saw the Howlies, Clint, and Sam (who had finally come with Steve the week before after Steve had wheedled him) sitting at the Howlies’ usual table, clapping. Dum Dum was wolf-whistling.

“Enjoyed it?” Steve called down to Sam.

“Man, you never told me you were part of the act!” Sam called back up at him.

Steve just grinned smugly down at him.

“That’s how he and Bucky met,” he heard Morita say.

Steve didn’t stick around to listen, though, and instead got to his feet to head outside to the bar where everyone usually met up after one of Bucky’s shows.

Another couple of weeks had passed since Tony’s Geneva trip, and Steve was starting to almost viscerally feel the panic at his time with Bucky and everyone else coming to an end. He clung to every moment and his sleep was suffering for it. He had started walking with Sam to Sam’s counseling center in the mornings so they could talk, he’d gone shooting with Clint a few more times and had finally met the infamously gassy, one-eyed golden labrador retriever named Lucky when Clint had invited him over to watch some show called _Dog Cops_. He chatted with Bruce whenever Bruce was in and, more often, spoke with Kate, Peter, and Kamala, which was why he’d noticed it when Kamala was beginning to look harried and exhausted.

“You’re looking really tired, Kamala,” Steve said gently one morning about a week before June would end. “You could call in sick, Bruce wouldn’t mind, I’m sure.”

Kamala shook her head. “I gotta work extra.”

“What? Why?”

Kamala sighed. “I want to go to college. I really want to study biology and go to USD, but I don’t have enough money. I mean, I’ll work throughout college, of course, but I’m trying to give myself a little leeway, you know?”

Steve’s throat closed up. He’d never gone to college, though it had been his every intention to, as a teenager. “Yeah, I get you. Just, don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

“If I push myself _now_ , I’ll have fewer loans later,” Kamala reasoned.

Steve couldn’t think of anything else to say to that, so he wished her luck and made a mental note to tell Bruce.

Steve even found himself hanging out with Tony Stark, though he hadn’t intended to. Instead, Tony came to his hotel room three days before the end of June.

“Grant,” Tony said when Steve opened the door to him.

“Tony.” Steve felt surprised and rather uncomfortable. He’d done his best to avoid Tony, because he couldn’t look at the man without seeing Howard’s body lying bleeding on the (supposed) safehouse’s floor. “To what, uh, do I owe the pleasure?”

“Bucky says you occasionally do art,” Tony said, strolling right into Steve’s hotel room like he owned it.

Steve cast about for anything incriminating, but there was nothing out, since not only Peggy, but also Philips and Erskine, had drilled it into his head that he needed to be prepared to evacuate wherever he was living at any moment. Tony’s eyes slid from Steve’s packed suitcase and ratty messenger bag and nothing else but an unmade bed. He was glad the battered laptop was tucked away, because there was no way Tony would miss Steve having Howard’s personal laptop.

“Real lived-in look here, Grant,” he said.

“I’m not a slob,” said Steve. “Yeah, I do art sometimes. What’s it to you?”

“I want to hire you,” said Tony. “Just a little piece for Bruce’s birthday.”

Steve frowned. “Bruce’s birthday? When’s that?”

“Uh, two days,” said Tony. “Didn’t you get the invite?”

“No?”

“Oh.” Tony shrugged. “You’re invited. My mansion, six pm. Anyway, I’ll fund you for whatever supplies you need, you make a thing for him, it’s all good.”

Steve squinted at him. “And why are you doing this?”

“Can’t a guy be nice to his friends?” Tony groused. “Also, Bucky mentioned he was worried you couldn’t afford to keep living in a hotel. You’re always welcome in the mansion, just saying.”

“Bucky tells you a lot,” Steve accused, his hackles rising at the thought of _Bucky_ , of all people telling Tony Stark their personal conversations.

“Oh, he wasn’t telling me,” said Tony. “I was just listening in. He was waxing poetic about you to Dernier.”

“Oh,” said Steve.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Well? Will you do it?”

Tony had decided to hire Steve to give him earned-cash and offer him a place to live. Steve’s estimations of Tony rose a bit. Tony was kinder than Howard, it seemed. Steve couldn’t have imagined Howard doing something like that.

“Uh, sure,” he said. “I’ll do it. Um, I’m a bit out of practice?”

Tony waved that off. “Just do your best, buy whatever you need, and bill me. Oh, and here you go. Ciao.” He tossed something to Steve, then wandered right back out of Steve’s hotel room.

“Okay then,” Steve said under his breath, looking at the thing Tony had thrown him. It was a pair of sunglasses in the shape of Martian eyes. Steve snorted, examined them for bugs or trackers (he didn’t find any) and slipped them on.

To be honest, he’d kinda forgotten what it felt like to wander around _without_ stupid glasses on his face. That was … awesome. Peggy would probably be laughing her ass off at him, and he honestly couldn’t blame her.

He flopped back on his bed and thought for a moment, toying with the strap of his ratty messenger bag, before coming to a decision. He got up and got ready to go out.

When he came back an hour later, he had all the art supplies he thought he’d need to make Bruce a drawing.

The next two days, Steve alternated between hanging out with various people at _Smashing Coffee_ , going out with the Howlies (to drink) and Bucky (to sight-see), and drawing.

His drawing skills were rusty as hell. Steve hadn’t had much call to use them in the last year or two, when Reborn’s fight against Leviathan escalated. His usually neat room was soon covered in crumpled balls of paper as Steve tried to figure out what the hell to draw Bruce.

“I mean, I’m not that close to him,” he told Bucky the day of Bruce’s party. They were strolling along a boardwalk, admiring the ocean. “I don’t know what he’d want.”

“It’s Bruce, he’d take whatever you want to give him,” said Bucky. “Because _you_ made it.”

“But he doesn’t even know me that well,” Steve said.

“Give it time,” said Bucky. “He already likes you.”

 _Time_ , thought Steve. _The one thing I don’t have._ That sobered him up quite a bit, and he paused, leaning his arms against the railing, looking out across the beach.

“Hey,” said Bucky, joining him. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Steve offered him a half-smile. “I have an idea, I guess.”

“That’s good,” said Bucky, smiling.

Steve snorted softly. “Yeah, well. Mind taking me back? I need to get working on it, or it won’t be finished in time.”

“Sure thing, punk,” said Bucky.

Steve spent the rest of the afternoon working on a charcoal drawing. It wasn’t as good as he used to be able to do, but it was way better than his previous attempts over the last few days.

He finished the last of the drawing with two minutes to go until it was six pm so, cursing softly to himself, he carefully tucked the drawing in a protective sheet, stuffed it in his messenger bag, dressed up (in the most normal clothing he currently owned, which meant black leggings with rainbow stripes, the tye-dye tank top, and his leather jacket), slipped a pair of sunglasses over his eyes (they looked like bicycle wheels), and hurried out the door.

By the time he arrived, huffing and puffing, outside of Tony’s mansion, it was already half past six and Bucky was waiting for him outside the gates.

Bucky looked at him with concern as he came to a wheezing stop in front of him. “Should we get you an electric scooter or something?”

An image of himself, tiny and horribly dressed, zooming over hills and causing traffic jams on a bright green electric scooter flashed in Steve’s mind, and he couldn’t help but shudder.

“I’ll pass,” he panted. “I think that’s cause more harm than good to the people around me.”

“Maybe get you a hover board then,” Bucky muttered. “C’mon in, they’re all inside.”

Tony’s mansion was, well, a mansion. There were three floors and the whole placed screamed taste and refinement, which was strange because Steve didn’t think Tony was either of those things. It must have been Pepper’s influence.

When they entered, the party was in full swing. A bunch of people Steve didn’t know were all chatting and dancing to some music, and there seemed to be honest-to-God strippers in one room that Bucky steered him away from.

They found the Howlies, Clint, Tony, and Bruce in one of the back rooms were the music was turned down low and the atmosphere was easy and chill.

Well, except for Tony, who was lying on the floor looking at a phone and tapping away one-handed on a computer.

“It’s been going on for months,” said Tony, aggrieved.

“What?” Gabe asked.

“Some asshole has been tapping into my dead dad’s account,” said Tony, disgusted. “I've been trying to track him down, but I can’t close the account—only my mother can, and she won’t—and I can't keep this guy out.”

Steve shifted, acutely uncomfortable.

“Hey, Tony, forget your ghost,” Bucky said. “Noam’s here!”

“Hey Noam!” most of the people said.

“Grant,” greeted Tony. “You wouldn’t steal from a dead guy, huh?”

“No,” said Steve, hoping he didn’t look too much like the liar he was even though Howard had technically given him permission. “I wouldn’t.”

“See, values and principles,” said Tony.

“Of which you have none,” countered Monty.

“I get no respect,” Tony complained.

“Join the club,” said Clint cheerfully.

Tony frowned petulantly. “Besides, I don’t need morals and principles, that’s what _you_ bozos are for.”

“Pretty sure they’re supposed to protect you from bodily harm,” said Bruce mildly.

“Ugh.” Tony lay an arm across his eyes. “Grant, you got the goods?”

“I do,” said Steve.

“Ooh!” Tony sat up looked expectantly at Steve. “Can I see? Wait, where are the glasses I gave you? Grant! They were a present!”

“Is it a gift for you or for Bruce?” Steve asked dryly. “And I wanted to wear these.”

“You’re an eyesore,” Tony muttered.

“You made me a gift?” Bruce asked, surprised.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Just show it, Grant.”

So Steve dug out his drawing and held it up for everyone to see.

“Damn,” said Morita appreciatively after a moment.

Bucky peered around to look at it. “Lookin’ good, Noam.”

“I’m outta practice,” Steve said apologetically to Bruce. “But, uh, hope you like it?”

Bruce didn’t say anything for a long moment, choosing instead to study Steve’s attempts at art.

It was a rather fantastical drawing, Steve had to admit. He drew Peggy from the back, gun in one hand and torch in the other, standing in front of a dark abyss where many eyes peered down at her along with the hint of teeth.

Finally, Clint gave a low whistle. “Damn, Noam. If that’s out of practice, I _really_ want to see you _in_ practice. Hey, can I take a pic for Tasha?”

“Uh,” said Steve, but Clint had already snapped the picture.

“I love it,” said Bruce quietly. “May I?” he reached out.

“It’s yours,” said Steve, passing it over and flushing. “Uh, happy birthday.”

“Thank you, Noam,” Bruce said quietly.

“Hey, I helped fund it,” Tony inserted. “It’s _our_ gift to you!”

“Thank you, Tony,” said Bruce with dry fondness.

“Great, last gift is done, finally. Can we go see the strippers? Why did I hire strippers if none of you guys go see the strippers?”

“Hell yeah!” Dum Dum said, getting to his feet and yanking Tony, who yelped and flailed, to his feet. “Let’s get this party _started!_ ”

Tony, Dum Dum, Dernier, and Morita all left, and Bucky steered Steve over to the empty two-person couch Dum Dum and Morita had just vacated.

“Did Tony fund you because you’re still living in that hotel?” Clint asked. “‘Cause I gotta say, Noamey boy, I gotta free apartment if you need it.”

“Clint,” Bucky said. “He’s not staying permanently.”

“Aww,” said Clint. “But I _like_ him!”

“You’re drunk, Hawkguy,” said Monty.

“ _Hawkguy,_ ” Clint mumbled, affronted. “Clearly not drunk enough. More booze!”

A couple people cheered, and Steve spent the rest of the night nursing a small bottle while he listened to all the old friends chatter back and forth. It was soothing, relaxing, and Steve desperately wished he could stay, could join this group of friends and _belong._

But, well. He’d have to leave soon. He had about nine days before the decryption would finish, and then he’d have to leave for good. The thought was an old one, a well-worn one, but he was just buzzed enough from the alcohol that the thought sunk like a lead weight in his stomach, making him feel sick.

“I’m gonna go,” he said when it was nearing ten.

Bucky turned to him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Steve, standing up and swaying slightly. He frowned and squinted down at the bottle. It was a different bottle. When had his bottles switched up?

“Hey, it’s late,” said Bucky. “You can crash on my couch, al’ight?”

Steve was tired enough and tipsy enough that this sounded not only like a good idea, but the _best_ idea.

“Sure,” he said, smiling up at Bucky.

Bucky smiled sloppily back and the two said their goodbyes and staggered out into the night for the apartment buildings next door. The cool night air sobered them up a little, and they were less giggly when they arrived at the building, though Bucky kept whispering little comments like, “If I had four feet, I’d trip twice as much as I already do,” or, “If I could sneeze anything, I’d sneeze cherry flavored candies,” to Steve, which weren’t really funny, but Steve just couldn’t stop laughing.

He’d never been in Bucky’s apartment before, which was on the top floor of Clint’s apartment complex. It was a nice apartment. A good sized bathroom, two bedrooms, and an open lounge/kitchen area. There were a few art prints on the wall and a number of plants huddled around the windows. Steve admired the nice, mismatched furniture and the comfortable air exuded by everything in the home. The place looked lived-in and welcoming.

Steve hadn’t had a home like this since his mom died over ten years ago, and their place hadn’t been nearly this nice.

Steve wandered over to the window and peered out, whistling lowly. “Wow. Nice view.”

“I’m a sniper,” Bucky explained as he let Steve in. “Clint’s got ground floor covered, I’ve got top, and the rest of the Howlies are spread throughout the building.”

“You guys worried about an attack or something?” Steve asked, concerned.

Bucky shrugged. “When you know Tony Stark … and besides, Clint’s gotten into trouble with the local mafia a few times.”

“The Lorn family, right?”

“Yeah. The Howlies and I are trying to figure out what to do about it. I swear, only Clint. He makes poor life choices. Shoes off, if you don’t mind, thanks. Anyway, Clint’s a disaster human being and would be the best marksman in the world if I didn’t exist.”

“Humble is your middle name,” said Steve as he took off his shoes and carried them back to the door.

“I thought it was Buchanan.”

Steve blinked. “Is it seriously that?”

Bucky smirked. “Yeah.”

“Oh my god,” Steve mumbled.

“What’s yours?”

Steve blinked at him, his brain sluggishly trying to figure out what Bucky’s question had been.

“Your middle name,” Bucky elaborated.

“Oh, Grant,” said Steve, then cursed himself.

Bucky shot him a bemused look. “Your name is Noam Grant Grant?”

“Uh.” Steve licked his lips. “My mom’s maiden name was Grant,” Lie, “and I use it because I want to remember her.”

Bucky nodded like this was totally reasonable, and they ended up huddled together on Bucky’s insanely comfortable couch, talking quietly deep into the night.

“I’m real glad I met you, you know?” Bucky said when their words were slow with encroaching sleep. “Fuck, you make me laugh, Noam.”

Steve giggled and hiccoughed. “You make me laugh more than anything else, Buck. Where’ya been all my life?”

“All over the place,” Bucky groaned. “ _Fuck_ it was hard growing up like that, you know? New school every couple’a months, friends fall outta contact.”

“Try growing up skinnier than a twig and with too much attitude,” Steve said. “I was people’s punching bag second grade through tenth.”

Bucky’s head rolled toward him. “And the last two years of high school?”

He hadn’t gone. High school drop out, that was Steve Rogers. “Homeschooled,” he said.

Bucky made a noise in the back of his throat. “Glad you didn’t get bullied.”

“Me, too,” said Steve. “Mom moved to Chicago—” She’d been dead at that point and the foster care system had moved him there, but whatever, it was close enough to the truth. “—and I stayed home and things were. Better.”

“That’s real good,” Bucky said. “Real good.”

Steve shifted in the lull of conversation and blurted out, before he could thinking the ramifications through, “I’m scared.”

“About what?” Bucky murmured.

Steve hesitated, but _god_ , did he want to tell someone. “That I’ll fail my friends,” he finally said. “That I’ll let them down again. I’m so scared for them and for, for me.”

Bucky pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked at Steve with dark, serious eyes. “Are you in trouble, Noam?”

His fake name jumpstarted his synapses, and Steve realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to spill his secrets to Bucky, so he said, “No, no trouble. ‘S just a fear, you know? Irrational.”

A flicker of something that might have been disappointment but might also have been acceptance rippled across Bucky’s face before he said, “Yeah, I know.”

Steve wondered if he had imagined it. Then he blinked, and Bucky seemed closer than he had been before. Actually, they were really close. Their sides were all pressed together and Bucky kept knocking his foot into Steve’s. Bucky was warm and smelled good, and Steve had never felt safer, never felt happier.

It came as little surprise when he looked over and saw Bucky looking at him, his blue eyes flickering from Steve’s eyes to his lips. Almost without realizing, Steve was swaying closer and Bucky copied him.

They paused just before their lips touched, and Steve could see Bucky’s eyes creased with concern, so Steve tried to project _this is good_ as loud as he could.

It must have worked, because Bucky leaned in and closed the gap, pressing their lips together.

Bucky’s lips were soft and warm, and Steve made a little sound at the back of his throat, and all he wanted to do was press closer, even closer, merge with Bucky if at all possible, to be enveloped by his warmth.

But then his brain kicked in, and Steve was doused with the cold reminder that he would be gone soon and this would break Bucky’s heart and absolutely no part of Steve wanted Bucky’s hurt. He became unresponsive to Bucky, squeezing his eyes shut.

After a moment, Bucky leaned away again. “Noam?”

“I gotta go,” he said quietly, blinking his eyes open and hoping no tears fell.

“Noam, wait—” Bucky began, but Steve was already up and out of the door, heading back to his hotel and trying to convince himself that his heart was pounding so hard because of exertion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... yeah, that happened. Nice going, Steve? *Hides*


	12. Chapter 12

Steve slammed his hotel door behind him and locked it with shaking hands, staggering over the bed and, forgoing the comforter on top, sank into a heap next to the bed.

Steve should have left weeks ago. Now Bucky was … He was…

He was going to be devastated when Steve disappeared.

And Steve was going to have to disappear. There were no two ways about it. He could try to put off the inevitable for a little while longer, but the end result was that Steve was going to leave without a note, without any way to contact him, and with no forwarding address, because the only address he was going to have was an unnamed grave somewhere, if that.

He ran his fingers through his hair, trying desperately hard not to think about that, because where once the thoughts of his own demise were apathetic, now they were painful as his brain brought up Bucky, and Sam, and Clint, and the Howlies, and...

Steve sighed and closed his eyes, thunking his head back against the matress.

He was pretty sure he was the Urban Dictionary definition of “pathetic.”

And he had hurt Bucky.

Steve screwed his eyes closed and groaned, wallowing for a bit in self-pity until he’d finally had enough of his own crap, which prompted him to get up, crawl into bed, and fall asleep.

The next day he stayed locked up in his room doing his usual checks. The decryption had an estimated eight days left before it was finished and he moved his Life Model Decoy to Siberia. Steve genuinely hoped that whatever hitman was after him would return with their balls frozen. LMDs were kinda a pain to deal with, but it gave him a vicious pleasure to think about all the hitmen he was inconveniencing.

He resolutely ignored the art supplies lying on the desk and the pile of crumpled papers in the trash bin.

The day passed with him flicking through TV channels and settling on some rerun of an old TV show whose name he promptly forgot. He halfheartedly tried to guess Howard’s password, but he didn’t think “Money,” “Son,” and “Gasj3405ldf0” were the answers (they weren’t).

He didn’t go out and get coffee. He didn’t go to Comic Lounge that night, even though he knew Bucky had a show. He didn’t go out to the bar for drinks with the Howlies.

Instead, he went to sleep before it was even fully dark.

Steve woke up the next day to someone knocking at his door.

“Huh?” he slurred, raising his head up.

The knock came again, this time accompanied by Clint’s voice. “Noam?”

He rolled out of bed and shuffled up to the door, opening it just a crack, and letting out a little breath. “Clint, hi.”

Clint was on the other side with two coffees in his hands. He shoved one at Steve, who accepted it more out of surprise than wanting the drink.

“Hey,” said Clint. “Look, I gotta warn you, if you don’t come with me, Tasha’s gonna invade your room. So how about we go down into the lounge area, huh?”

Steve squinted. “Tasha? Here?”

“Yep.” Clint shrugged. “She wanted to break into your room, but I like you and talked her out of it. So, get dressed and meet us downstairs in ten.”

He turned away from Steve and headed off down the hall.

Steve cursed under his breath and closed the door. He set the coffee aside and scrambled to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and throw on clothes and a pair of silly glasses. Once he was presentable (though only kind of, he thought with a grimace at his cheese-patterned exercise shorts and technicolor button-up), he slipped his messenger bag on, grabbed the coffee, and headed off downstairs.

Tasha—or Natasha, Steve didn’t know which she prefered—turned out to be a woman only slightly taller than Steve with bright red hair and a distinctly dangerous air about her. It was the same air Peggy carried herself with, one that said, _I can do whatever I like and you’ll_ thank _me afterwards._

Steve could respect that. In a wary sort of way.

She was dressed in casual clothes, but when she gracefully stood up from the bland hotel chair and extended a hand to Steve, he could feel the calluses of a skilled fighter.

Steve put two and two together. Either she belonged to a team like Reborn, or she was some sort of secret agent.

_Great._

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Natasha.”

“Hi,” he returned. “Um. I’m Noam. What’s up?”

Her smile was sharp. “Have a seat.”

Steve slowly sat, clutching his lukewarm coffee close to his chest.

“So, Noam,” she said, and Steve immediately knew she thought he was suspicious. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was about her demeanor—her tone was light and her body language relaxed—but Steve had spent enough time around Peggy and Sousa to catch the slight tug in her voice that told him she was on to him. No surprise, if he’d guessed right that Clint and (maybe) Bucky was on to him, too.

“Yeah?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible and probably failing.

“I’m in town because Clint wanted me to meet you,” she said. “There was going to be a party today. Your birthday, right?”

Steve blinked, then remembered that, oh yeah, today was Noam Grant’s birthday.

“Right,” he said.

“So I finally get to meet this guy that Clint _and_ James—”

“Bucky,” Clint said helpfully.

“— _and_ Bruce have been raving about for weeks now. And then I find that James isn’t speaking to anyone and no one has seen you in over a day.”

Steve looked away. “So?”

She cooly took a sip of her own coffee. “I come from Russia, you know.”

Steve blinked and remembered that Bucky had mentioned something like that. “Oh,” he said, like an idiot. “Right.” She didn’t have a Russian accent. She smiled a thin little smile.

“I’ve always been good at accents.” Her tone was just a touch ruthful and _oh_ , was she _good_. “I grew up with militant guardians. They weren’t kind, but they made sure I could survive. Here’s the thing. I got out of Russia and am living a life I’d never even dared to dream of here in the U.S., and it’s thanks to two people—Clint and James.”

“Aww, Nat, I’m blushing,” Clint muttered. Steve wondered how much, if any, of that story was true.

She ignored Clint. “Now, I know everyone’s got issues and problems, but no one’s issues and problems are serious enough that you can’t act like goddamned adults.”

Steve blinked. “What?”

She leaned forward, staring at him intently, and Steve immediately tried to school his expression. “I don’t know you, but I know James, and I know he’s a hapless idiot, but he’s also not a bad judge of character. If he trusts you, then that’s great.” _But I won’t_ , was the unspoken message, and Steve tried not to be too intimidated. “So since he’s acting like a little child, I need _one_ of you to act your age and _talk._ ”

“Right,” said Steve. “You’re giving me a shovel talk, aren’t you?”

Natasha smiled. “If you like. I don’t know you, Noam, and if you hurt Bucky, I will do something unpleasant—”

“Kill me?” Steve hedged.

She shot him a flat look. “Don’t be so dramatic. A broken heart over a crush is hardly something deserving of death.”

“But she will break into your room and fill your shoes with toothpaste,” Clint added helpfully.

Natasha didn’t deny this.

Steve met her eyes, and he tried to sound as sincere as he possibly could as he said, “I'll talk to him. I'm not ... I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to hurt anybody.”

This seemed to satisfy her somewhat, and Steve nearly sighed with relief as the weight of her gaze lessened. He seemed to have passed her sub-textual test, though he had no doubts she was going to keep a _very_ close eye on him.

“Think about it,” she said, the undercurrent gone from her voice. She sounded like a regular, protective friend now. “Talking isn’t hard. If it’s not going to work out, then it’s not going to work out, but you need to tell him that. James isn’t talking to me, so I’m going to go do something petty to his apartment. Clint will help me.”

“I renovated the vents,” said Clint. “They’re much easier to move around in, now.”

“Joy.” Natasha's lips quirked upwards. She stood and stretched slowly, like a cat. “For now, goodbye.”

She got up and wandered out of the hotel lobby out into the bright sunlight.

Steve stared after her and looked back at Clint, who was stirring his coffee absentmindedly.

“Um,” he said. “...Wow?”

“Yep, that’s Tasha,” said Clint. “You survived! Congrats.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. “I was … not expecting that?”

Clint shrugged. “Well, we figured if you were trouble, we’d already know about it.”

That was as close to admitting he knew Steve was lying as he’d ever gotten, and Steve looked down at his coffee, which prompted him to sip the nearly cold liquid.

“None of us think you’re a bad guy, Noam,” said Clint. “So Tash’s backing off. Be glad you didn’t, like, accidentally stab Bucky or something, because _then_ …”

Steve winced. “Yeah.”

Clint drained his coffee and let out a large belch. “Well, want my way less threatening advice?”

“Sure?”

“Door code is 4295,” he said, getting up and heading out after Natasha. “Bring condoms!”

“Oh my god,” said Steve, flushing red.

Clint wolf whistled as he left the lobby.

Steve groaned and sank back into the couch cushion, waiting for his blush to die down.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super happy with this chapter, but I've been picking at it for hours and I'm just going to throw it up here.

Steve didn’t go straight to Bucky’s apartment after the terrifying talk with Natasha (who, honestly, intimidated Steve more than he honestly wanted to admit). There were a couple of things he had to do first.

It didn’t sit right with him, just to disappear without warning. The values his ma had instilled in him while she was alive raged against the very idea. So, instead, he spent a next few hours tightening his excuse, sending emails to Noam Grant’s email that dated a few days ago, buying an airplane ticket (that he wouldn’t use, but added to the legitimacy of his whole scheme), and forging a series of text messages with one of his “coworkers,” who handled travel and such.

None of this would fool people who were already looking into him, but he was chancing that none of the San Francisco people were avidly stalking him (though he wasn’t quite sure if Natasha was doing that already). This would, hopefully, throw them off for long enough for him to finish his mission.

So it wasn’t until the late afternoon, when the sun was sinking towards the horizon, that Steve finally dragged himself out of his room and staggered out of the hotel and onto the street.

It was around five o’clock and a Wednesday, so a lot of people were still at work. Steve kept his shoulders hunched and his head down as he made his way up the hill to Bucky’s apartment.

The sun was hot, and Steve briefly remembered that it was summer. It was so strange, but Steve had kind of forgotten about seasons. They hadn’t mattered the last two years, when Reborn had been on the run and hopping hemispheres every couple of weeks. He hadn’t really paid attention to it the last few months, either, but he would be dead in about a week, and he felt raw, alert in a way he hadn’t in so long. This might be the last time he got to enjoy sunshine, the last time he had any semblance of safety. He closed his eyes and breathed in the heat, car fumes, and faint trash smell.

It kind of felt like a novelty.

“Hey, Noam!” someone called out.

Steve blinked and looked around, spotting Sam coming down the other side of the street, waving at him.

He couldn’t muster up enough enthusiasm to call back, but he offered Sam a little wave.

This seemed like enough of an invitation for Sam, who looked both ways before jogging across the street. He was dressed in a simple t-shirt and jeans—not on his way to the counseling center, then.

“Hey, where’ve you been, man?” Sam asked. “Haven’t seen you for a couple of days.”

Steve considered Sam for a moment, then looked down at the ground.

Sam was a genuinely good person, and Steve was so, so thankful to have met him, all of them, despite how hard they all had made the next step of his plan.

He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. _Just like ripping off a bandaid_ , he told himself. He just needed to let them know he had to leave quickly and they would accept that. Like Clint had said, none of the people who were onto him thought he was too much trouble, and people like Sam likely weren’t even aware that he was anything other than a vacationing twenty-something. All Steve had to do was tell them all he was going to leave and then none of them would hear from him ever again.

“Noam?”

Steve looked back up. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”

“That’s okay,” said Sam gently. “Wanna talk about it?”

Steve gave a half-shrug. “Not much to say. Bucky and I were at a party, then we went to his apartment. We talked, we kissed, I freaked out and left.”

“Oh.” There was no judgement on Sam’s face. Steve’s heart felt like bursting with the amount of affection he held for Sam. For all of them. For Bucky. Fuck.

“I’m on my way to explain things to him now,” Steve said quietly. “I got a call from my work. They want me back. My vacation’s over. I’m leaving.”

Sam’s expression crumpled, and he said, “That … that sucks. Brooklyn, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’ll see you around over there soon,” said Sam.

“What about that two year plan to hang around the center?” Steve asked.

Sam shrugged. “The building’s rent went up this month. We can’t afford that, so the center’s closing down. Guess I’m gonna expedite my plans to go back east.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said quietly.

“Is what it is,” Sam said. “There are plenty of other centers for other people to go to. You, though. You keep in touch, Noam, you hear?”

Steve gave him a tiny smile. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all we can ask for.” Sam hesitated a moment, then wrapped Steve up in a hug.

Steve stiffened for a moment, then cautiously returned the hug. It was the first real hug he’d had in months. It was warm and comforting and overwhelming. Sam was an amazing hugger, and Steve was almost overwhelmed by how much he _didn’t_ want to leave.

“Thanks, man, for everything,” Sam said as he pulled away. “And don’t be no stranger now, alright?”

“Alright,” Steve managed, trying not to sound too choked.

He watched Sam walk away for a few moments before returning to his trek up the hill.

When Steve finally reached Bucky’s top-floor apartment, he took a moment to compose himself. His heart was beating fast, and not just because of the walk up the hill. His hands were sweaty and he really hoped Bucky was home. He didn’t know if he could put off his plans to depart any more.

He raised his hand and knocked, hard, twice.

There was a crash and a muffled curse before footsteps headed towards the door, which swung open a few moments later to reveal Bucky.

Bucky looked amazing, as always. He was dressed casually in soft pants and a light grey sweater with the sleeves rucked up. His feet were bare and his longer hair was drawn back in a sloppy bun. He was accompanied by a strong smell of lemon.

“Hi,” said Steve softly.

Bucky kept staring at him. Steve shifted slightly. “Uh, Bucky?”

Bucky blinked, then asked hoarsely, “What the hell is on your face?”

Steve touched the glasses on his face that he’d thrown on without looking. By the feel of them, they were a pair Peter had gotten him, which looked like a hand of poker cards, only clear enough that he could see through them. They glowed in the dark. “Uh, Peter gave them to me. Like them?”

“Tacky as hell,” replied Bucky, opening the door wider. “Come on in?”

“Thanks,” said Steve, slipping in under Bucky’s arm.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Bucky asked, closing the door after Steve. “Tea, coffee, soda? Also, don’t mind the smell, I’ve had to do a spot of unexpected clean—”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said abruptly.

“Or we can go right into the heavy stuff,” Bucky said wearily. “I’m sorry, too. I, uh, should have gotten your verbal consent.”

“I mean, always good practice, but you weren’t doing anything wrong,” said Steve, practically vibrating with nerves. “I did want to kiss you, and I want to—fuck, I’d love to—to get coffee or something sometime, but just not right now, you know?”

Bucky was silent and visibly considering what Steve had just said. Then he nodded to himself and said, “Take a seat on the couch, Noam. I’ll get us something to drink.”

Steve toed off his shoes and sank on the couch. He tried not to fiddle too much with his bag strap and probably failed.

When Bucky joined him, he passed Steve a cup filled with something red. Steve took a sip and discovered it was raspberry lemonade.

“Thanks,” he said. “Look, it’s not that I _don’t_ like you, it’s just that.” He huffed a sigh. “I’ll just say it. I’m leaving. Tonight.”

“ _What?_ ” Bucky almost dropped his drink.

Steve didn’t look at him. “I have a late flight. My boss in, um, Brooklyn. He recalled me. My vacation’s over.”

“Noam.” Bucky sounded pained.

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered, then lied, “I only found out about it just before Bruce’s party.”

“That quick,” Bucky muttered. “I wish … I wish you weren’t leaving.”

“I’m sorry I’m leaving, too,” said Steve, looking down.

“You know, sometimes it feels like I’ve known you for ages,” said Bucky softly. “But it really hasn’t been that long, has it?”

“Maybe it’s timeline shenanigans,” Steve rasped.

Bucky snickered half-heartedly. “Maybe. You always pick the worst times to prank me.”

Steve shoved at him. “Shut up!”

A wicked gleam sparked to life in Bucky’s eyes as he leaned close and said, “Make me.”

Steve couldn’t, in good conscious, kiss him, but he did grab a throw pillow and smack Bucky in the face with it.

Bucky reared back, startled, then narrowed his eyes. “Oh, it is _on._ ”

...And now Steve, a fully grown almost-twenty-seven year old man, was engaging in a pillow fight.

What the hell. He could play dirty.

He lunged.

“No fair! No feet!”

When they finished their impromptu battle, they lay on the carpet side-by-side, panting and giving off the occasional giggle.

“You know,” said Bucky. “I’m really glad I met you.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, closing his eyes. “I’m glad I met you, too.”

When he blinked his eyes open, he saw that Bucky was looking right at him, something gentle in his eyes and Steve felt was entirely undeserved.

“Hey, Noam,” said Bucky. “If you have an hour or so before your flight, I got something to show you.”

Steve should have left. But instead he said softly, “I’ve got time, yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's Bucky going to show him? Mwahaha, you'll see soon! And buckle up guys, because next chapter is when things _really_ get rolling *evil grin*


	14. Chapter 14

Steve was a wanted criminal. Three months ago, he made the FBI’s Most Wanted list and his codename put on several terrorist watchlists, both national and international. His picture—or, rather, the image of his decoy (which was six-feet of muscular, all-American goodness, as Peggy once put it)—was circulated around various alphabet-name agencies while Steve did his best to hunker down and ignore the uproar after the fall of his team. It incited a fury within him, to see what the various agencies thought he was, when they were _so oblivious_ to what had grown within them...

Half of him expected Bucky to turn him in, to turn around to Steve and say, “We’ve figured out _exactly_ who you are,” and then ignore Steve’s attempts to explain, throwing him in prison to await the murder of millions of people that he _could have stopped if only_ —

That didn’t happen, though.

Instead, Bucky drove him about a mile away from the hill and parked outside of a dark studio. He withdrew the keys to the place from one of his pockets and let them both inside, flicking on a light as he went.

“What is this place?” Steve asked, looking around.

The inside was quite large. The wooden floors gleamed like a gym floor and on the far side of the room there was a little stage that had a few instruments resting on it. Wide wooden beams stretched across the ceiling and the bare bulbs hanging from them were dim, giving the whole place a surreal lighting. Tables and chairs were pushed off to the side of the hall. Beneath windows set high near the ceiling.

“It’s a dance hall,” said Bucky. “Tony rented it out for me. I was … I was gonna take you here for your birthday party. We had a whole event planned.”

Steve looked around, then back at Bucky. “This _whole dance hall?_ ”

Bucky shrugged. “That’s Tony for you.”

“There’s not still going to be a surprise party, is there?” Steve asked suspiciously.

“I called it off,” Bucky admitted quietly. “I didn’t … I didn’t want to do anything you’d be uncomfortable with.”

Bucky headed over to the side of the room where speakers were set up, digging his phone out as he went.

“I can’t dance,” said Steve, holding his bag’s strap tightly. “Like, I really, _really_ can’t.”

Bucky didn’t look up from what he was doing. “I’ll put on something slow.” Then his head rose and he met Steve’s eyes. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

Steve would be gone by morning. He swallowed and said, “Something real slow, alright?”

“You got it,” said Bucky.

After a moment, music sounded from the speakers. “ _Wise men say … Only fools rush in … But I can’t help, falling in love with you…_ ”

While the croon of Twenty One Pilots sounded over the speakers, Bucky came back to stand in front of Steve, looking at him with dark eyes.

“Can I…?” Bucky gestured at Steve’s glasses. “I just, I’ve never really seen you without them.”

Steve couldn’t speak and just nodded tightly.

Slowly, Bucky reached up and removed Steve’s glasses, slipping them into his pocket, and then leaned back, gazing at Steve’s face for the first time unimpeded by anything.

“Wow,” Bucky breathed quietly.

Steve flushed and looked down. Bucky reached out and gently, carefully, lifted his chin up.

“You’re beautiful,” Bucky said and brushed a thumb underneath Steve’s eyes.

 _No, I’m not, I’m a liar_ , Steve thought, but the words wouldn’t make it past his lips.

“Thank you, for everything,” Bucky said seriously.

“I haven’t done anything for you,” Steve croaked.

“You listened to me,” Bucky said. “You … Noam, you made me feel so special. Like I was actually funny and interesting. So, thank you.”

Steve resolutely willed himself _not_ to cry.

Bucky stepped back and offered Steve his hand with a little flourish and Steve, only hesitating a moment, took it.

They went slow, exactly like Bucky had promised, and with Bucky in the lead, Steve just let his body move with Bucky’s, let their movements flow. It wasn’t a special dance—there were no fancy moves, no flipping over each other’s backs or complicated footwork. They mostly just swayed and moved in wide circles. Steve closed his eyes and buried his face in Bucky’s chest, listening to the thrum of Bucky’s heart and the song as it echoed around them quietly.

When the first song faded out, another came on. “ _I had a thought, dear, however scary…_ ”

“You had a whole playlist, didn’t you?” Steve muttered accusingly.

“Well, I had planned this out ages ago,” Bucky murmured.

“You jerk,” said Steve fondly.

“Punk,” Bucky whispered, his forehead coming down to rest against Steve’s, and Steve’s breath caught in his throat. He closed his eyes as they began to burn and focused on breathing in and out steadily.

“ _I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask and neither should you. Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do…_ ”

Steve and Bucky swayed across the dance hall, their breaths mingling, and Steve let himself relax. His bag kinda got in the way, but Bucky didn’t ask him to take it off, and Steve didn’t offer. Instead they circled around the dance hall while Hozier crooned over the speakers.

When the song faded out, Bucky whispered, “Happy birthday, Noam.”

Steve willed himself not to cry and instead croaked out, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Bucky said softly. Another song started up, but neither moved to dance to it. Instead, they stood near one another, looking at each other, soaking the other in.

“This is really nice,” said Steve and cleared his throat as he voice broke towards the end.

Bucky smiled. It wasn’t his radiant, 100 watt smile, but it was small and real and _beautiful_. “I’m really glad.”

Then Bucky’s beautiful smile changed to an expression of horror as Bucky shouted, “GET DOWN!”

The next thing Steve knew, he was crushed under Bucky’s body as bullets ripped into the wall behind where they had just been standing. His phone—his _real_ phone—let out several shrill beeps, and he scrambled to look at the screen. The alerts were piled on top of one another—his decoy had been found, his decoy had been hacked, had been _destroyed_ —

“Shit,” Steve whispered, scrambling to silence his phone, his heart hammering in his chest.

They had found him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs are [here (Can't Help Falling in Love)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ThQkrXHdh4) and [here (Like Real People Do)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrleydRwWms).
> 
> Aaand we've officially left the more fun, fluffy stuff behind! Welcome to the Plot and Angst train! Onwards!


	15. Chapter 15

“Shit!” Bucky shouted. “My phone—!”

...Was still plugged into the speaker across the room. More bullets rained into the hall and Steve and Bucky scrambled for the scant cover of the tables and chairs.

“Here’s mine!” Steve shouted, shoving a burner phone at Bucky, who took it and dialed a number.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he muttered, trying to shield Steve’s body with his own as they crouched under the tables. “Pick up—Fuck! Okay, let me try—C’mon, c’mon—Dum Dum! Dance hall, _now!_ ”

Steve winced as a spray of bullets hit some of the tables near him.

“We gotta get outta here!” Bucky snapped. “Follow me!”

“You sure?” Steve shouted.

“Let’s _go!_ ”

Steve scrambled after Bucky, weaving their way through table legs and squeezing past chairs, trying hard not to budge anything and give away their position. Steve had a significantly easier time of this than Bucky, who cursed and muttered under his breath as his larger bulk nearly moved tables and chairs when he tried to worm his way around.

Thankfully, the gunmen didn't seem to be able to see them, and both Steve and Bucky inched their way closer to the outside.

“When will they be here?” Steve hissed.

“A couple minutes, tops,” replied Bucky tersely. “We aren't _too_ far away.”

“What do we do?” Steve hissed.

“Keep moving,” Bucky murmured. “Don’t stay in one place. Stay down, stay under cover. Don’t do anything stupid or risky.”

“Those are my middle names,” Steve whispered.

“I thought it was Grant,” Bucky grumbled. “Okay, to that table, now, go!”

That was the way they moved across the dance hall, to the occasional spray of bullets as their unseen assailants tried to guess their location. Steve could hear shouts and footsteps approaching the doors, but no one had entered the dance hall yet.

Then an explosion sounded outside, rattling the windows and causing a few of the chairs to wobble.

Bucky, strangely, looked relieved. “Dernier,” he told Steve. “Let’s go!”

They crawled out from under the tables, keeping low, then made a dash for the emergency exit. Bullets fired down at them, but there seemed fewer this time and before Steve knew it, they were outside in an alleyway where a fight was already underway.

The Howlies had come to their rescue, and Steve spotted Dum Dum and Monty engaging some ground combatants while Dernier threw more explosions around. The bombs seemed minor enough, but it spooked his opponents.

“We need to get to the stre—” Bucky began when a bullet whizzed through the air and hit his left arm.

“Bucky!” Steve cried.

Bucky gritted his teeth and slapped a hand to his arm as blood welled beneath his fingers. “A graze! I’m fine, forget it!” Bucky staggered forward. “Street!”

They both ran towards the street, trying to weave about to make themselves worse targets while avoiding the patches of fighting men, and Steve prayed that no other bullets would come their way. Bucky, grim and silent, steadily grew paler as more blood leaked from between his fingers. Steve’s head swam as his throat began to close up, and his breath came in panting gasps.

“Run, Barnes, run!” Dum Dum yelled cheerfully as he clobbered a gunman. Then he saw Bucky’s arm and said, “Oh, shit!”

Bucky ignored Dum Dum and said through gritted teeth, “Keep going.”

As they approached the street, an enclosed electric shuttle bus screamed to a stop next to them and Gabe opened the doors. “Get in!”

Steve and Bucky scrambled into the open door and found Morita in the first seat along with what looked like a mini-hospital in the seats next to him.

“Fuck, Barnes,” Morita said once he saw the blood.

“Graze,” snapped Bucky, collapsing into the seat next to the door.

Steve collapsed next to him and tried to remind his body how to breathe, except it couldn’t. His breaths came in wheezing gasps, his chest felt like it was wrapped in an iron band, and he clawed at his throat, mind feeling too cloudy to fully function.

“Shit, Noam!” Bucky cried.

“Check his bag,” Morita ordered, sinking down onto the ground and feeling Steve's throat, trying to feel for any blockages.

Steve couldn't have stopped Bucky from rooting in his bag if he tried, too focused on trying to suck in as much air as he could, but he saw Bucky yank open his bag and root around wildly for his inhaler. He prayed that Bucky didn’t linger over the strange laptop he kept in there.

“Here!” Bucky shoved the inhaler at Steve, who took it and sucked the chemicals down desperately.

The other Howlies barged onto the bus just then with Dernier throwing one last explosive behind him.

“Drive,” gasped Monty, and Gabe flung the doors shut and floored it, sending most of the Howlies, cursing, to the ground.

As the bus hurtled down the streets, Steve focused on breathing as Morita worked on Bucky’s arm, cleaning the deep graze and bandaging it with an efficiency that told Steve he had done this many times before.

“What the fuck and who the fuck,” said Dum Dum, climbing determindly off the floor and into a seat, dislodging some of Morita’s supplies, which earned him a, “Fuck off,” from Morita.

“No idea,” said Bucky, wincing as Morita tightened a bandage and leaned back.

“All done,” said Morita. “I want a closer look at it at the mansion.”

“The mansion?” Dum Dum asked.

“I’m the most well-known of the Howlies,” said Bucky, looking pale. There were blood splatters along his cheek. “ _Fuck_ , I should’a known the comedy thing was a bad idea.”

“I love it,” Dernier volunteered.

“Yeah, but it’s my face,” said Bucky. “I’m employed by Stark Industries. If they were targeting me…”

“Then they’re probably after Stark,” Monty finished. “Shit.”

“Noam, I want you to come with us,” said Bucky. Steve startled and looked at him, his head still swimming from its recent oxygen deprivation. Bucky had a dark, intense look on his face. “Please. Just so we can keep you safe. Tony’ll get you a plane out to New York once we’re sure it’s safe, but … I mean, they had to have seen you. You could be a target.”

_Are you the target?_ Steve got the feeling Bucky was asking. He _was_ the target, yes. But he didn’t mention that. He couldn’t drag them into this. He _couldn’t_. This was Steve’s mission, and Steve’s alone, because he couldn’t ask them to die for him, he just couldn’t.

So instead he minutely shook his head and returned his inhaler to his bag, taking a precious few seconds to collect himself and tried to stop his vision from wobbling.

He needed to get out. He had really, _definitely_ lingered for too long. He was a sentimental idiot, and now he’d put his friends— _Bucky_ —in danger. Bucky was _hurt_ because of him, Bucky could have _died_ because of him, could have—

He was the absolute worst. The guilt roiled in his gut, and Steve knew, right there and then, that he wasn’t going to go with the Howlies.

“Noam,” Bucky murmured. “If you know anything—”

Steve’s hands closed around his bag’s strap. “I don’t,” he said, and was about to lie some more when he was interrupted.

“We all need to go to the mansion,” Gabe called back. “Regroup, figure out who attacked you guys.”

“Noam.” Steve looked up to see Bucky still staring at him.

“Yeah?” he managed. 

He thought Bucky was going to keep pushing, but instead Bucky just said, carefully and slightly slurred, “Are you okay with coming with us?”

“I…” Fuck, Steve needed to leave, and he needed to leave _now_. But they weren’t going to just let him, he needed them to relax their guard. So Steve, hating every word that left his mouth, said, “Yeah, okay.”

Bucky slumped slightly and sighed with relief. “Great, thanks. We’ll get you a flight back out as soon as it’s safe. Tony can compensate your boss, if need be.”

Steve needed an out. He clutched his bag’s strap tighter and thought, _Of course._

“That’d be nice,” he muttered.

He was forgotten in the next few minutes as Gabe drove in a confusing pattern to throw off any trails and the Howlies tended to their various (minor, thankfully) wounds.

But when the bus coasted to a stop at a red light, Steve felt in his bag for one of his gas pens and flash bangs.

He let out a little breath and stole a desperate glance at Bucky, who was lightly dozing next to him. His scruff was flecked with blood and his hair was in disarray, pulled from the ponytail he’d had it up in. Steve took just a few moments to memorize Bucky’s face, then looked away.

If he was going to do this, he needed to be fast.

As Gabe started moving forward with the green, Steve looked both ways, saw no other traffic, dropped a flash bang, and uncapped the pen.

First there was a loud flash and a gigantic BANG! Then the bus was filled with smoke and the coughing and shouting of the Howlies. Steve was up and hitting the emergency stop button, which opened the doors. He was out of the bus and vanishing into the darkness before the Howlies could catch him while sirens wailed in the distance.

Then he ran.


	16. Chapter 16

Two days. It had been two days, and Steve had burned and left Noam Grant far behind as he fled across the country and tried desperately to figure out what to do next. The decryption, which was almost done, wasn’t _quite_ done, and he didn’t have another in-depth cover like Noam Grant readily available. Leviathan had found out all the rest when Reborn fell, and he felt acutely hunted now that his decoy had failed.

So, under the flimsy alias “Freddy Marks” that he had used once with Peggy on a job in Upala, Costa Rica, some time before they fell on Leviathan’s radar in a serious way, he fled San Francisco.

Bucky had called him almost as soon as Steve had left the bus, but Steve ditched the phone as quickly as he could in a dumpster before hightailing out of there. Once he had gotten a good distance away, he scrubbed himself and his possessions down for any trackers. He didn’t find any, but then he remembered the coffee from Clint and Natasha earlier. He panicked, because he really didn’t know who Natasha was or what she was willing to do to the semi-sketchy potential love interest of her best friend. He bought laxatives at a convenience store.

That delayed him a bit, but he was able to steal an older car (apologizing in his head all the way) and drive out of San Francisco, heading for nowhere in particular but _away._

After driving to a different city, ditching the car, getting another car, finding a tiny airport, flying to a bigger airport, getting plain, nondescript clothes for the first time in months, then getting on a completely random flight, Steve had finally found himself in New Jersey.

So close to where he once called home, yet so far, too.

Standing in the airport, he was painfully aware that he looked nothing like Noam. Noam had been designed to stand out and hide that way. Now Steve’s hair was dyed a dark brown, his clothes were in varying shades of brown and plaid, and his eyes covered by boring black sunglasses. That, added with some light touches of makeup and some cotton in his mouth, his face was different enough from Noam’s that facial recognition would have a hard time with him. He looked like a tired hipster intern. He’d fit right in in New Jersey.

Over the course of his flights and huddled stays in airports, he dealt with his failed decoy. Steve needed to protect his signals and protect them well. Whoever had found out his decoy had hacked back to his location, using the decoy’s signals, and whoever had done it was _good_. Steve had to spend an airplane ride strengthening his firewalls. Whoever the other hacker was, they’d narrowed down his general location, and from there agents on the ground had done the rest. That couldn’t happen again.

Once he was sure enough that his location was as secure as he could possibly make it, he shut down all his electronics except for Howard’s computer, still running its decryption, and tried to stay awake.

Steve was _exhausted_ , but he forced himself to leave the airport and head out to the taxi line. He snagged one and headed for a the cheapest motel the taxi driver knew of, where he smiled blandly at the lady behind the counter, paid in cash, and slunk into the tiny room. It was not anywhere near as nice as his hotel room in San Francisco, but it would do.

Once the door was closed behind him, he groaned and flopped onto the horribly stiff bed, burying his face in his arms.

If only he and Bucky had met at a different time. If only Steve hadn’t gotten all caught up in this mess in the first place. If only, if only, if only.

But god, did it feel good, to be out and about and actually _doing_ something other than stewing in his own dramatic angst. Steve’s lips twisted wryly as he imagined Peggy’s amused chiding at his own melodrama.

His lips smoothed out, though. He still had—Fuck, he had _so much to do_. He needed a list, he needed—

One of his phones rang. There was only one person it could be, so Steve groaned and dug it out of his bag, answering it and shoving it in the general direction of his ear.

“Nomad,” said a voice that was very much not Sousa.

Steve’s breath stuttered. “ _Pe_ —I mean, Miss Wendy?”

“No need to sound surprised.” He could hear the laugh in her voice, despite how croaky and weak she sounded. “This line is secure. Little gift from Howard.”

“Good,” he said. “I—How are you?”

“Awake,” she said. “Finally. It’s good to hear your voice, Steve.”

It was the first time someone had spoken his name in months. Steve closed his eyes and gentled his voice. “And it’s good to hear yours, Peg.”

There was a small pause as they both listened to each other breathe, reassuring themselves. Then Peggy said, softly, “Sousa tells me it’s been three months.”

“Thereabouts.” He felt choked up. He had hoped and prayed she would wake up from the coma Leviathan had put her in, but he hadn’t been sure. Now that she was awake... “God, can I do anything for you?”

“Well, given that we’re likely hundreds of miles apart, I shouldn’t think so,” she said dryly. “But thank you nonetheless. Sousa tells me you’ve been trying to crack Howard’s decryption software?”

“He was paranoid, when it came to his Reborn computer,” said Steve. “I’ve been trying to speed it up but Howard didn’t tell me the keyword for that. I’ve been trying, but I can only do so many a day…”

“Try ‘Griffith,’” said Peggy.

Steve pulled up his laptop and typed the command in, and his eyebrows raised as the program seemed to kick into overdrive. New estimated time: two minutes.

 _Two minutes._ If Steve hadn’t felt so awful, he might have smiled.

“You’re an actual angel,” he said.

“Steve, don’t go after them by yourself,” Peggy said. “ _Please_. I’m awake, I’m on the mend. Another month and I’ll be right as rain and the three of us can take them down together.”

“Another month and Leviathan might go through with Project Insight,” said Steve. “I’ve got this.”

“ _No_ you _don’t._ ” Peggy’s forceful desperation caused her to break out in a coughing fit.

Steve waited until she had caught her breath. “I need to do this now, Peg.”

“This isn’t something you can do alone,” Peggy whispered hoarsely. “I’m begging you to reconsider, Steve.”

Steve wanted to take her up on her offer. He wanted to so badly. She was _right_ , he wouldn’t be able to do it, but … But there was no one else he could ask. He closed his eyes tight and forced himself to breathe, in and out, but flung them open again when the battered laptop beeped. Steve stared at it for a long moment before tapping the track-pad with shaking hands to get rid of the black screen.

The program was complete. He had access to Leviathan’s security system and personnel files.

“ _Steve._ ”

“I know,” he said, tabbing over to the Insight launch bays. “I know. But I have an opportunity here, Peg. I gotta take it.”

He could only hear her faint, thready breaths on the other end of the line for a long moment, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“You are going to your _death._ ” Peggy’s voice broke.

“I know,” said Steve, and he heard her breath stutter.

“This was your plan,” she rasped after another moment. “All this time. You’re going to sacrifice yourself. For what? For—for _what?_ Some … _misplaced_ sense of heroics?”

“To give you a chance!” Steve snapped before forcing his voice to soften. “Sorry. Just. Peggy, you’ve been fighting them for over a decade and you deserve a chance to be free of them.”

“And you don’t?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want,” said Steve. “Reborn is dismantled. I’m the only one left who can do something about it, ‘cause I can’t ask Sousa to leave you. If my life’s the price I gotta pay for a safe, free world, then there’s no question.”

“But there’s got to be people who can help you,” she whispered.

Steve’s mind flashed to Bucky, to the Howlies, Clint, Tony, heck, even Natasha. But they were on the other side of the continent and had no idea who Steve really was or what he was doing.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think there is.”

“ _Steve._ ” He could hear the heartbreak in her voice.

“It’s okay, Pegs,” he whispered. “This is my choice.”

“Steve—”

But he hung up on her and pressed the phone to his forehead, hard, trying to stop the tears from falling. Over two months ago he’d fled to San Francisco ready to wait to die. He’d had nothing to live for, no light in his life, and then…

Then he’d made friends. Then he’d remembered how to laugh. Then he’d met Bucky.

And now, fuck, he wasn’t ready.

He didn’t want to die.

But there was no way out of it. Steve was going right into the lion’s den. He was going to let himself be swallowed by the Nemean Lion to stab it from the inside out, and there was no way he could escape that.

It was his real birthday today, he thought distantly as he curled around his phone and tried to focus his mind to plan his next steps.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all are giving me LIFE with your kudos and comments! Thank you so much you guys!

Steve spent the next three hours preparing and doing a few things he’d meant to do, back in San Francisco. While a lot of the technology he’d gotten was from Howard, Steve was no slouch at it and could hack with the very best of them. Howard would have expected no less, and Steve spent the last years building on Howard’s teachings.

This meant it was fairly easy to steal a bunch of money from the Lorn family, expose various tax evasions they’d done their best to seal up, then tip off the police. Clint likely wouldn’t be having any more problems from the Lorn family any time soon.

Then, with the money he stole, he funneled it into various small shell companies and donated it to Sam’s counseling center as well as put enough of it into Kamala’s college fund so she could attend USD.

Once his friends were taken care of, Steve turned his attention into creating the identity of Evan Christanson, a reporter of an independent newspaper in Orlando, Florida. With the launch of Insight in just a few days, reporters were swarming the Triskelion. It was the perfect cover.

After that? He had some shopping to do. He stole another car and stopped by an old friend of Philips’, man by name of Hodge, who lived in Trenton and who was willing to give Steve sedatives, an easily-concealed gun, and one of Howard’s sealed goodies bags to cash in for a small favor Hodge owed Philips.

Then Steve went into a mall and bought himself clothes a reporter might wear complete with plain brown (fake) glasses, a decently nice button up, and plain tan slacks. He could almost feel himself fade away into the background as he dressed himself, bought the clothes and a new burner phone, and left. On the way out of the mall, he bought a computer sleeve to hide Howard’s unique computer from questioning eyes.

Once he got back to his hotel room, it was just past sunset and he made himself go to bed early and get as much rest as he could.

It wasn’t much—five uninterrupted hours, perhaps another hour in the short catnaps he dozed in and out of—but when he rolled out of bed at five AM, he felt as ready as he was ever going to be.

He took a train down to D.C. and tried not to panic too hard at what he was going to attempt to do. He held his ratty messenger bag close and briefly touched the necklace underneath his shirt.

A couple hours later, Steve stood blinking in the early morning sunlight of Washington, D.C. He checked his phone and followed the map towards the Triskelion down by the banks of the Potomac.

When he walked up to the guard in front of the visitor’s entrance to the Triskelion, the one where the public was allowed (very limited) access, he was prepared to bullshit his way like there was no tomorrow.

Thank goodness for all those comedy nights where he did nothing but bullshit through story after story. He was well prepared.

After submitting his ratty bag for inspection and going through the metal detector, he passed his ID over to the guard who squinted down at it. The guard didn’t seem suspicious, though, and Steve let out an internal sigh of relief. He’d been right—Leviathan had been expecting him to look like his big, muscular Life Model Decoy, or the technicolor disaster Noam. Evan Christanson on the other hand? With his bland clothes, tiny stature, and unassuming cotton-filled face? He sailed right through.

The guard looked up at him. “You a reporter?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Came up from Florida.”

“Yeah?” The guard passed him back his ID. “Is it true there’s gators everywhere?”

Unbidden, the Howlies' lesson on improv floated to the forefront of his mind.

_Don’t deny._

“Sure,” said Steve. “Even got gator sausages.”

The guard laughed. “That’s great, dude.”

_Don’t try to be funny._

“It’s terrifying,” said Steve seriously. “Really, I know the rest of the States wonder how Florida is even real, and us Floridians wonder the same thing every goddamned day.”

The guard shook his head and looked at Steve with softer eyes. “I do wonder. Oranges are good, though.”

_Tell a story._

“Our one saving grace,” said Steve dryly.

The guard laughed again and said, “Nice, man. Press conference is first floor, room 1D.”

“Hey, thanks,” said Steve as he headed deeper inside the building.

 _Laughter disarms people. People love to laugh, and they love people who make them laugh,_ Bucky had told him. Guess he hadn't been too far off-base.

Once he was inside, he let out a little breath and wandered across the room. He didn’t want to look too confident—he was a reporter from out of state, that would look off—but like he kind of knew where he was going while still gawping at various things, like the massive eagle in the middle of the room and the various well-dressed people who looked absolutely like they belonged.

Just before he hit the stairs, however, he pulled out his phone, tapped in a few commands, and casually let himself into a door by the side. He immediately looped the nearest security cameras with a few more taps, ducked into an alcove, and got to changing.

From Howard’s bag of goodies, he pulled out a face mask that turned his strong-jawed, large-nosed face into a softer, rounder face. He pulled out a janitor’s coverall from his back and threw it on. He also withdrew a new ID and, with a few seconds on his phone with Howard’s program, gave himself level 3 access as a janitor.

That would get him up to the fifteenth floor. There, he would change yet again, this time to a level 7 agent, which would get him access to not only Director Fury, but Secretary Pierce as well.

He touched the five-pointed star necklace around his neck and took a deep, fortifying breath.

Then he withdrew earbuds, stuck them in his ears, and headed for the nearest staircase, trying to affect the look for a bored janitor on his way to go clean.

He only ran into one pair of guards in the stairwell as he began his ascent. One glanced at his ID, displayed on his chest, and then looked away, bored. Steve kept his face neutral as he continued up.

Up on the second floor, he found a janitor’s closet and grabbed a bucket and a mop, carrying it up with him to the third floor.

To access the fourth floor, he needed to swipe his ID, and he waited, trying not to hold his breath, until the light blinked green and he was allowed through.

He just needed to get to Fury and Pierce. Knock them out, evade any agents after him, and get up to the World Security Council room, and then…

Well, and then he’d save the world. Or fail it. No pressure.

He had to swipe his ID again at the sixth floor, but just as he entered through the doorway, he felt a slight prick at his neck.

He immediately swung around, trying to hit whoever was behind him with his bucket, but his vision was already blacking out, the floor hurtling towards his face, and Steve had just enough time to grasp the strap of his messenger bag as someone’s arms caught him and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if gator sausages for a thing, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if they were.  
> Update: A couple people have confirmed that they are, in fact, A Thing. Humans are so weird, wow. Thank you, guys!
> 
> Up next: Steve's Very Bad, No Good, Utterly Dramatic Backstory finally revealed!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, your responses are blowing me away. You're the best :)
> 
> Now, for the backstory so many of you have been waiting for .... *drum-roll*

Steve came to with a start to find himself in a closet. His hands were tied up in front of him, but there was no gag around his mouth. He sat, slumped, on the upturned bucket he’d stolen from the second floor, the mop leaning against the wall nearby. From the feel of it, his face mask was gone, but he was still dressed as a janitor. He could feel his ratty messenger bag still wrapped around his body, and he nearly wept in relief.

Natasha sat on another upturned bucket in front of him.

“Well, hey there, sailor,” she said with the barest hint of a smile.

“What the hell?” he managed.

Natasha shrugged. “We got a tip you’d be here.”

Steve’s head swam for a moment before his lips tightened. “Miss Wendy.”

“That was the name she gave,” Natasha agreed. “Which is very interesting, because I could have sworn there was a notorious grifter named Katherine Wexford who sometimes goes by that name.”

Steve huffed a sigh. “I didn’t fool you for a moment, did I?”

“We knew something was off about you,” murmured Natasha. “Your cover was very good, and not even Tony has been able to dig up who you really are, but we know it’s not Noam Grant.”

Steve looked away. “Nomad was my code name.”

“Nomad?” Natasha’s eyebrow raised slightly, which was the only indication of her surprise. “The hacker?”

Steve barely nodded his head.

“It’s safe to talk here,” said Natasha. “I made sure of it. You were part of a group. Erskine, right?”

“Yeah.” Steve licked his lips.

“I’d heard that his team had been destroyed,” said Natasha. “Completely wiped out, but no one in the intelligence community knows by whom.”

Steve said nothing.

A little puff of air left Natasha’s mouth before she pressed it into a thin line. “Your team was very hush-hush.”

Steve pressed his lips together.

Natasha leaned forward. “Tell me about Reborn, Nomad.”

Steve looked back at her and jutted his chin. “Why?”

“Because,” said Natasha, eyes glinting dangerously. “I can either help you succeed, or help you to fail, and it depends entirely on what you say next. I want to help you, Nomad, but I can’t without the full story.”

Steve gritted his teeth and considered his options. On the one hand, he’d planned and prepared to do this alone, and the last year had taught him that he couldn’t trust anyone at all.

But…

But Peggy had reached out to them.

Now, he trusted Peggy more than he trusted just about anyone in the world, and he trusted Sousa almost as much. She had sent Natasha to help him—Would he turn away her not-so-subtle suggestion?

He already knew his answer.

So he took a deep breath. “Reborn was founded by Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark with the intent to help solve crimes that the police and other government agencies couldn’t, or wouldn’t, go after. We’d bring justice to those who would otherwise get none. Erskine knew people, knew them like Howard couldn’t hope to, knew how they ticked, but Howard could make _anything_. They fleshed the team out with the rest of us. Philips was one hell of a fighter and Miss Wendy and Pegleg were thieves and grifters who could con their way into and outta anything.”

“And you were their hacker,” said Natasha.

“Only after Howard died,” Steve said. “He taught me everything he knew. I was just a kid when he found me. I was fifteen when my mom died and I bounced around the foster care system for a year until I finally ran away. I met Howard when some jerks were trying to rob him out in Chicago. He was old, you know? That wasn’t right. I mean, I had no idea who he was, but after Philips came to our rescue, they offered me a place on their team. A place to stay, food in my stomach, a chance at some sort of education, to _really_ help people … Who was I to say no?”

“A chance to do something,” Natasha murmured.

Steve shrugged. “Erskine and Howard didn’t tell the rest of us about Leviathan until just before Howard was murdered. We didn’t … that was the _real_ reason Reborn was founded. The rest of it was to help, yes, but to also get us working as a team so that when we went after Leviathan, we knew we could trust each other.”

“What is Leviathan?” Natasha asked.

Steve squinted at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be an intelligence expert or something?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Humor me.”

What the hell. “Leviathan used to be known as Hydra, but I guess they realized they were too closely affiliated with Nazis and also sucked at graphic design. They were some World War II Nazi organization that specialized in weapons manufacturing and biological research but rebranded themselves into Leviathan after the war. Leviathan has its claws in most of the world’s governments. They’ve bribed thousands of people to look the other way as they start wars and benefit from the resulting chaos. They’ve got their hands in dozens of things. Weapons, artifact trade, human trafficking, you name it. If they can make millions off of it, then they’ll do it.”

Steve let out a little breath. “Reborn was always gonna go after them, that was why we were founded, but it wasn’t like it was a little job, you know? It would’ve taken _years_. But Howard figured out that Leviathan’s new leader was a lot more … ambitious than the average joe. He didn’t want to just cause a war or two here or raid historical sights and sell the stolen goods on the black market. He wanted _control._

“And, and Howard knew him. Like, in real life. They had worked together and Howard had never suspected. He, uh, kinda lost it, and it tipped Leviathan’s leader off that people were on to him. So he. He had Howard killed. And I.” Steve looked down. “I couldn’t fucking stop them. Howard shoved me in some sort of panic room before they even knew I was there. I was. I was with him for a training session and I guess the room was soundproof, but there were monitors and I…” He let out a shuddering breath.

Then he cleared his throat and said, “Howard wasn’t a good man, but he was trying to do the right thing. He was trying trying to stop Leviathan from taking over the U.S. government and using all of its wealth, might, and power to take over the rest of the world and I’ll be fucking damned if I let him down.”

“But Howard died eight years ago,” Natasha said. “Reborn wasn’t reported as defunct until almost four months ago.”

“Yeah, well, by that time I could take over as hacker,” said Steve, clearing his throat roughly. “We spent the last eight years doing what we always did, you know, helping people where the laws couldn’t, and preparing to take down Leviathan. We managed to cover our tracks pretty well, too, but Leviathan cottoned on about a year ago. And, uh.”

“They came after you,” said Natasha. “Who got out?”

“Miss Wendy, Pegleg, and me,” said Steve. “But they hit Miss Wendy with some sort of gas and she’s been in a coma for the last four months. Erskine and Philips didn’t. They didn’t make it.”

“So you’re trying to take down Leviathan by…?”

Steve looked away. Trust. He could try it. If it blew up in his face, then, well, a whole lot of people were going to die.

No pressure.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a leap of faith. “Mainframe. Leaking all their files. Any records of them, their employees, who does business with them, all their past deeds, all of it online for the world to see. I need to do it now, because I’ve been tracking their movements for months now and they’re almost ready for their takeover. Project Insight.”

“Project Insight?”

“A weapon, to neutralize any enemies, present or future,” said Steve. “SHIELD built it, but Leviathan is in charge of SHIELD.”  
Natasha closed her eyes for slightly too long. “Pierce.”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “I planned to expose them. But I…” And here he paused and drew in a ragged breath.

“Nomad.” He looked at her, her gaze serious. “What’s your plan?”

Steve wet his lips. “I was going to knock Fury and Pierce and copy their retinal scans to gain access and then leak all the files onto the Internet.”

“And your out?”

Steve shrugged.

Natasha pressed her lips together, then pressed a finger to her ear. “Did you guys get all of that?”

Steve looked away. He’d figured their conversation wasn’t private, but it would have been nice to have been proven wrong. Now he could only hope she was on his side of things.

Natasha looked back at him. “Stark’s not happy,” she said. “But, well, he’ll meet us at the mainframe with a little gift.”

“I—You’re helping me?” Steve blinked.

She lifted her chin. “Stark hacked into SHIELD on our way here. We found some … inconsistencies, that Miss Wendy hinted we might find. While you’ve been talking, Stark’s been digging. Leviathan isn’t stupid enough to keep things like assassinations where anyone could find them, but there’s enough there to corroborated your story.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “That’s, uh, good.”

She leaned forward. “Let’s get you to the mainframe.”

“You don’t need to get involved,” Steve protested. “If this all goes belly-up…” His throat closed momentarily.

“Then we’ll go down fighting.” Natasha didn’t seem perturbed by this idea. “Come on, Nomad.” She reached over and cut Steve’s wrists free. “We have an organization to take down.”


	19. Chapter 19

They left the closet behind and continued up the stairs, going slow enough that Steve’s asthma didn’t act up but still at a fairly brisk pace.

“Mainframe’s on the fiftieth floor,” Steve gasped. “We gonna walk all the way,” _wheeze_ , “up there?”

“No, of course not,” said Natasha. “We’re just going to the tenth floor.”

“What’s on the tenth floor?” Steve managed.

“You’ll see.”

Steve gritted his teeth, but didn’t pry, instead trying to encourage his legs to move _faster, faster goddamn you_ as they pushed past the eighth floor, then the ninth, and, finally, they arrived on the tenth. Natasha swiped an ID card (Steve didn’t know if it was hers or not) and led them onto the floor.

“Be cautious,” Natasha murmured. “We don’t know which strangers here are friend or foe.”

“Yet,” Steve muttered as the door swung shut behind them.

Natasha strode forward like she owned the place, and Steve did his best to copy her, struggling to keep up and also not die of oxygen deprivation.

_This was why I was rarely sent out into the field_ , he thought bitterly, once again filled with frustration over his body.

They didn’t pass anyone until they came up to the elevators, where a group of heavily armed and militant-looking men loitered about.

“Hey,” said one, a scarred man with a sheer haircut. He eyed Steve and his hand drifted to the gun at his hip as both Steve and Natasha drew to a halt. “Who’s the kid, Romanoff?”

Steve raised his hands and looked at Natasha, who stood totally cool in the middle of the hallway.

“Fury wants him,” Natasha said briskly.

The scarred man looked Steve up and down, thoroughly unimpressed by Steve’s ratty janitor’s uniform and ratty bag and conspicuously uncuffed hands.

“I don’t think—” the man began when several somethings whistled through the air, hitting the guards, who instantly collapsed. Steve started and looked around to see both Bucky and Clint strolling towards them from opposite ends of the hall. Both were dressed in tactical gear, though Clint’s had more touches of purple while Bucky’s was all black. 

Bucky looked … Really good. _Really_ good.

_Focus, Rogers._

“Rumlow never thinks,” Clint said happily. “What an asshole.”

“You okay?” Bucky asked, studying Steve carefully. His expression wasn’t warm like Steve was used to seeing, but there was still concern there.

Steve tried to smile, but didn’t think it reassured Bucky at all. “I’m alive.”

“We need to keep moving,” said Natasha briskly, tapping her ear. “Howling Commandos, that’s your cue.”

An explosion rocked the Triskelion, much bigger than the ones in San Francisco, and Steve wondered how long it took Derneir to build that bomb.

Then Bucky, Natasha, and Clint were hustling him into an elevator and Natasha jabbed at the fiftieth-floor button.

“Well,” said Clint, leaning back and studying Steve. “This was a lot more dramatic than I’d expected your super-secret backstory to be.”

Steve shrugged. “Go big or go home?”

“I’m down forty dollars,” Clint said glumly. “My bet had been you were on the run from some asshole with ‘connections’ you punched in the balls for some stupidly heroic reason.”

“Idiot,” Natasha muttered.

“I have done that before,” Steve said.

Clint grinned. “Atta boy!”

Steve snuck a glance at Bucky, who stood in the corner over Steve’s shoulder. Bucky was glaring at the ground.

Steve licked his lips and said, “Bucky?”

Bucky’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Fuck, Noam,” said Bucky, and while he didn’t touch Steve, he could see Bucky’s fingers twitching. “You were on a fucking _suicide mission?_ ”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Steve snapped, whirling on Bucky.

“Call for help?” Bucky snapped back.

“Is now really the time?” Natasha asked, but Steve barreled ahead.

“Who, exactly?” Steve crossed his arms. “Who could I call? My team was _dead_ or in a _coma_ , and I’d be asking complete strangers to either die or be imprisoned for life for treason or whatever if we failed. Bucky, this is us literally taking out major swaths of the government to root out a Nazi organization! I can’t just ask people that on a whim!”

“You coulda asked me!”

“I barely know you!” Steve dropped his hands, clenching them into fists. “I barely know any of you! I’ve been around you guys for two and a half months, and that is _not_ enough time to ask you to risk your lives!”

“But you were just cool with risking yours?” Bucky’s eyes glittered.

“I’ve been preparing for this since I was sixteen,” Steve growled. “I know the risks and I was ready.”

“And what about us!” Bucky shouted. “We cared about you and you were just, what, going to go and _die_? And none of us would have any idea what’d happened to you!”

“That happens all the time!” Steve gritted his teeth. “People come and go in our lives and we never hear from them again and that’s just normal!”

“Fuck normal!” Bucky snarled as the elevator shuddered and Natasha cursed. Then they were dropping down, and Steve reached out and grabbed Bucky’s sleeve tight.

With a soft screech, the elevator slowed and the cabin flickered into darkness.

“They cut the lines,” said Natasha grimly. “Bucky?”

Bucky sighed and bent down, letting Natasha climb onto his shoulders so she could open the hatch in the ceiling.

“Steve, come here,” she said.

Steve hesitantly stepped over while Natasha clambered down from Bucky’s shoulders.

“I have a harness,” she said. “You’re going in it.”

“I am?”

She looked him over. “You’re, what, ninety pounds?”

“Something like that,” said Steve. “Maybe hundred and ten.”

Clint whistled. “You ever eat?”

“Sometimes,” said Steve. He chanced a glance at Bucky, who wasn’t looking at him and was instead looking up through the hatch, gun at the ready.

“Stand still,” Natasha ordered before looping Steve into some sort of harness that then attached to her torso. Steve felt like a toddler strapped to its parent’s chest.

“This sucks,” he muttered.

“Going up,” said Natasha, who used Clint’s braced hands to jump up through the hatch onto the top of the elevator.

There was immediate gunfire at them, but Bucky shot back once Steve and Natasha were clear and someone groaned. There were no more gunshots after that.

Natasha pulled out two things that looked like gloves, though they stuck to the walls. Maybe they were magnet gloves. Clint and Bucky, when they heaved themselves out of the elevator, also had similar gloves.

“And onwards,” said Clint cheerfully as the four of them proceeded upwards slowly.

Natasha had to be insanely strong, Steve thought. She was barely breaking a sweat as she carried not only herself, but Steve, who dangled uselessly from the harness.

“Thankfully we were on floor forty-four when all that went down,” said Clint. “That was nice. Would’ve hated it if we were down at level two.”

“Worst,” Bucky agreed.

“Shut up,” said Natasha. “You both are weak.”

“Hey,” Bucky and Clint protested just as another bullet fired down at them.

Bucky leaned back, gun in hand, and returned the fire. A body fell past them into the elevator shaft.

“Holy shit,” Steve muttered.

“Sorry,” said Bucky, tucking the gun back away. He winced and rolled his left shoulder.

“Bucky?” Steve asked, worried.

“Just the graze,” said Bucky. “Hasn’t had a chance to full heal, but I’ll be fine. C’mon, almost there.”

After another ten minutes of climbing, they finally pulled themselves out of the shaft onto the fiftieth floor. Steve felt weak and useless as the others sweated and panted (well, Natasha seem to be doing either of those things, and Steve was starting to suspect she was a genuine alien).

“Look who’s joined the party,” said a voice. Steve looked around to see Sam standing there, grinning.

“Sam,” he said. “I thought you were retired.”

“Friend needs my help? Hell yeah, I’ll be there.” Sam helped him up and out of the harness while Bucky, Clint, and Natasha picked themselves up. “Stark’s in there already.”

“That’s the mainframe,” Steve said. “Yeah.”

“Stark ready?” Natasha asked Sam.

“He said so,” said Sam. “Dunno if I trust him, but sure, what the hell.”

Natasha nodded, and suddenly she, Bucky, and Clint were stone-faced and holding themselves in that languid, quicksilver smooth way fighters did.

“So cool,” Sam whispered.

Steve let out a shaky breath and bobbed his head in the barest nod.

“Here we go,” Bucky murmured as Natasha stalked forward and pushed open the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have maybe three chapters left? Something like that. I can't believe it's almost over, but we still have the climax to get through! Dun dun dun :D
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented and left kudos, you guys genuinely keep me going!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been stressing over this chapter, ngl.

“‘Bout time you joined us,” said none other than Tony Stark. He lounged in one of the chairs in front of the mainframe while two men stood stock still, one pointing a gun at the other. A second gun lay on the ground, near Tony’s feet, though Tony didn’t move to pick it up.

Steve knew who both men were, having researched all he could on them for Erskine, and he tried not to let his fear show. Now that he was standing in the same room as them, he couldn’t help but feel slightly intimidated, especially by Fury’s terrifying glower. _How_ , exactly, had he planned on taking these two men down? Steve was a fucking idiot.

Nick Fury was an intimidating man on paper, but in person he was even more imposing. Over a foot taller than Steve with an eyepatch and more balck leather than Bucky was currently wearing, Fury glared at the man he had in crosshairs, one Alexander Pierce.

Pierce looked unassuming, another rich banker or maybe even an actor with those blue eyes, but Steve saw the cruel intelligence on his face. Leviathan’s leader hadn’t gotten where he was by being a dummy, and his eyes swept over their group, assessing.

“About time, Romanov,” said Fury as Natasha drifted over to a nearby computer and began typing while Tony made an enraged noise under his breath.

“Stark,” Fury said lowly.

“Right, right,” said Tony, getting to his feet.

There was something off about Tony, something wild and frenetic that Steve hadn’t seen before, but then Tony started talking.

“So, you killed my dad, huh?”

“Stark,” Fury warned again.

Pierce didn’t even look his way. “He was getting in the way of progress.”

“Progress?” Tony spat. “You _murdered_ him.”

Steve felt his heart clench up, the jerking of Howard’s body as it was hit once, twice, three times clear in his mind. The image that had haunted him for years, had given him nightmares and enshrouded him with paranoia, all because of the smug, self-righteous man in front of him who just wanted _power_ and _control._

“Not me, personally,” said Pierce, still calm, still carrying that air of self-satisfaction that made Steve want to drive his fist into Pierce’s face. Repeatedly. “On my orders, yes.”

“You bastard,” Tony snarled and lunged, only Clint was there, wrapping an arm around Tony’s chest.

“Not now,” Steve thought he heard Clint mutter.

Pierce _tsked_ and said, “You all are already too late. Your little operative was good.” He looked Steve up and down, and Steve fought down a snarl and instead jutted his chin out. “Nomad. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, I must say. That was a marvelous decoy you had. You had some of my best hackers struggling to pinpoint your location exactly. If you hadn’t gotten so lax there towards the end, you might have thrown us off your scent for quite a while longer. We could use someone like you.”

Steve clenched his fists and spat, “ _Never._ ”

“A pity,” said Pierce, eyes flickering back to Fury. “Our enemies are the same, Nick. Disorder, chaos, war. Leviathan just wishes to bring peace to billions of lives, all at the cost of a few million. Isn’t that the goal? To live in a world without hunger? Pain? Fear? Violence? We can end that, you know.”

Another explosion rocked the building as Fury said, “If those were your goals, then we’d have a discussion, but I kinda get the feeling that you just want to wipe out anyone who would stand in your way.” His eye narrowed. “And _that_ is not something I’d help you with.”

“He’s a literal Nazi,” said Tony, who shrugged Clint off. Clint let him, though by his body language and wary eye on Tony, he was ready to restrain Tony again. “They fail at things like _basic logic_ and _compassion._ ”

“I’ve already preempted the launch,” said Pierce. Steve glanced out the window, heart beating hard, and saw that two helicarriers were indeed rising into the sky. “I doubt your little team out there can stop all my people.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Bucky, folding his arms, though Steve saw two knives in his hands, ready to strike. “They are _very_ good.”

“Yes, the Howling Commandos,” said Pierce. “I’ve watched your exploits carefully, I can assure you. You would fit well, in Leviathan.”

“Not interested,” said Bucky flatly.

So Pierce turned his attention back to Fury again. “So this was your grand plan, Nick? What, force me here at gunpoint and do … what, exactly?”

“Expose you,” said Fury. “I knew there was something going on in SHIELD. Had my best agents looking into it. But for it to be you, of all people…”

“I’m just trying to make the world a safer place,” said Pierce.

“Define ‘safe’,” Fury said. “And how that’s related at all to taking over the whole goddamned planet.”

A display flickered to life along one wall with three blue boxes spread evenly across it. Across the top read the words: RETINAL SCAN.

“You don’t seriously think I’ll do this, huh?” Pierce asked.

“You being alive is optional,” said Fury and cocked his gun. “I’ll shoot you right here, right now. The scan wants your eye. _You_ don’t need to be alive.”

“Oh, Nick, you need me alive,” said Pierce. “I’m the only one who knows how to do what it is you want.”

“Two retinal scans doesn’t seem to be above my paygrade,” Fury said dryly.

“Ah.” Pierce smiled. “Not two. _Three_ alpha-level clearances.”

“Bullshit,” said Tony.

“After Erskine, I knew I had to,” said Pierce in satisfaction. “With his ridiculous team and funny little hacker.” His eyes swerved in Steve’s direction. “Nomad has been a thorn in my side for years, but even he couldn’t fake an alpha-level clearance.”

“Nomad’s a better name than Noam,” Tony muttered.

Steve lifted his chin. “Go to the scan, Pierce.”

“The third?” Sam prompted from behind Steve. “I assume you have a plan for that.”

“I do,” said Steve, eight years of preparation culminating to this moment. “Because I have the third.”

Everyone looked at him.

He shrugged. “Erskine guessed you’d probably do something like this. We planned for it.”

“Erskine’s retinal scan won’t work,” Pierce snapped. “He’s not in the SHIELD database.”

“But Howard was,” said Steve.

Pierce's eyes narrowed. “Howard Stark is dead.”

Steve looked Pierce right in the eye and gave a slow smirk.

Bucky and Clint leveled their guns at Pierce who, slowly and begrudgingly, headed for the retinal scan.

“Oh, you didn’t think I wouldn’t delete your retinal, did you?” he asked as Fury neared another one.

“I had, actually,” said Fury. “But if you want to stay one step ahead of me, Mr. Secretary.” He reached up and slipped off his eyepatch. “You need to keep _both_ eyes open.”

Pierce fumed as his last ditch attempt to regain control in the room fell through, but scanned his eye while Fury did the same.

Steve approached the third and last scanner and slipped the star necklace off from around his neck, holding it up and pressing a button at the top.

Five lights from each of the points triangulated to form a hologram. A digital eye, an exact copy of Howards, floated in blue light just in front of the star, and Steve brought it up to the third and final scanner, which accepted it.

“Uploading,” said a cool computer voice.

“And … Done,” said Natasha. Then she looked at her phone. “And it’s trending.”

Suddenly, Pierce withdrew a small gun, no bigger than his hand, from within his jacket pocket and shot at Steve, his blue eyes cold and clear. The bullet whizzed through the air and slammed through Steve’s left shoulder, tearing through his flesh and lighting up every pain center Steve had just as two more shots rang out.

“NOAM!” he heard someone—Bucky?—shout just before everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters to go!


	21. Chapter 21

Steve woke up feeling incredibly groggy and very confused. His left shoulder was in a lot of pain and, as he laboriously turned his head, seemed to be swathed in fabric.

“Hello, Steve,” said a woman’s soft voice beside him.

Steve’s eyes jumped to see none other than Maria Stark sitting at his bedside. She was older than the one or two photos he’d seen of her. Her silver hair was kept away from her face by an elegant bun. She was dressed impeccably and sat up straight next to him, her blue eyes clear, sharp, and kind.

“Mrs. Stark,” Steve said, surprised. “I—” He struggled to sit up, but his left shoulder gave a warning bolt of pain and he collapsed back, gasping.

“Don’t get up on my account,” she said, patting the back of his hand. “Water?”

“Please,” he croaked.

She helped him sip from a glass, her touch gentle and warm.

“I didn’t even know you knew about me,” he admitted.

“I didn’t, not until shortly before Howard died,” Mrs. Stark said. She sighed. “He was quite impressed by you, you know. And Howard … Howard knew he was likely going to die soon and wanted to protect you—and your work—for as long as possible.”

Steve let out a little laugh. “The bank account.”

Mrs. Stark chuckled. “Yes, Tony was quite angry about it, but I warned him not to pry. That boy still listens to me, thankfully.” She sounded wry and fond.

“I—thank you,” said Steve. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much I’ve really done for you, but you’re quite welcome, dear boy.” She patted his hand and said, “The others will want to know that you’ve finally awoken for more than three seconds. I’ll let you speak to them.”

She stood up to leave, and Steve said, “Goodbye, and thank you again.”

“My pleasure,” Mrs. Stark said before leaving.

Steve felt pleasantly muzzy, in the floating place between too drugged to comprehend anything and too in pain to comprehend anything, and he dozed lightly as he waited. He wondered if he’d succeeded. He wondered if the world was safe.

“Noam?”

With some effort, Steve pried his eyes open and turned his head to see Bucky staring at him, eyes wide and concerned.

“Bucky?” he managed.

“Hey, yeah.” Bucky looked terrible as he stepped into the room and sank into the chair Mrs. Stark had just vacated. There were deep circles under his eyes, and he had surpassed his usual artful scruff and gone full-on beard mode. Which also looked amazing. How did he do it?

 _Focus,_ right. “Where are we?” Steve asked.

“Back in San Fran,” said Bucky. “In Tony’s mansion. You’re recovering from a gunshot wound.”

Steve winced as said injury throbbed. “I figured.”

“Yeah.” Bucky breathed out sharply through his nose. “You’ve been out for almost three days.”

“Guess I needed the sleep,” said Steve.

“Guess so.”

They stared at one another, and Steve’s addled brain tried to think of what he should say and ended up failing miserably.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.

Bucky looked surprised. “For what?”

“For lying,” said Steve. “And, and, just. Being generally terrible to you.”

“Hey, no, you haven’t been generally terrible to me,” Bucky countered. “You’ve actually been really awesome to me.”

“But I lied,” Steve whispered.

“For a good reason,” said Bucky gently, reaching out and carefully taking Steve’s hand. “I don’t blame you.”

“You should,” said Steve miserably. “This has been one giant fucking mess because I had no idea what I was doing.”

“Because you didn’t account for your entire team being put out of commission,” Bucky countered. “Who could’ve predicted that?”

“I should have,” Steve said.

“It’s not all on you.” Bucky pressed his lips tightly together. “I just wish we’d met earlier so you could have felt alright asking me for help instead of … of going in without an _exit plan_ , I...” And he looked so pained that Steve wasn’t sure who to do, what to say, but he just wanted to erase that stricken look off Bucky’s face.

Before Steve could do anything, though, they were interrupted by the arrival of Tony Stark, who burst into the room and said, “Well, well, well, _who’s_ awake? My little account-stealing friend, huh?”

“Hi, Tony,” said Bucky.

Tony steamrolled right past him. “Unnamed man who is in my recovery room and for whom I’m fending off a persistent Fury who wants to hire him—hey, since we know that stupid name isn’t your real name, can I call you Carl? You look like a Carl—anyway, Carl, I have a very important question for you.”

“My name isn’t—” Steve began, but Tony once again ignored him.

“Are you meaning to tell me that the terrible clothes and the stupid sunglasses were, what, a _disguise?_ ”

“Well, yeah.”

Tony threw up his hands. “You stuck out like a sore thumb!”

“That was the point,” said Steve. “Besides, _you_ couldn’t find me.”

Tony stared at him, then announced to no one, “I retract all my previous statements. I hate him.”

“Too bad, Stark,” said Dum Dum cheerfully as he entered the room. “I like him!”

“You’re not in charge of me!” Tony protested. “I’m in charge of you!”

“I think you’ll find that’s also Pepper,” said Monty mildly as he and the rest of the Howlies, plus Sam, entered the room.

“You all are the worst,” Tony announced. “And I hate you all.”

“No, you don’t,” all the Howlies chorused.

“Hey, man, good to see you awake,” said Sam.

Steve winced and said, “Yeah.”

“Awake and on the mend!” Dum Dum said. “I’d give you champagne if Dernier hadn’t drunken it all.”

“Gabe drank,” Dernier protested.

“Don’t you throw me under the bus!” Gabe shot back.

“But don’t feel the need to do that again, eh?” Monty asked. “Gave us all a right scare. If Miss Wendy hadn’t contacted us, I think Bucky would have jumped off a cliff in despair.”

“I would not’ve!” Bucky protested. He didn’t, however, remove his hand from where it still rested on Steve’s.

“You gave us all a scare,” Sam said, reaching down and squeezing Steve’s leg. “Don’t do that again.”

“Or else!” Dernier threw in.

“You guys can rag him later,” Bucky grumbled good-naturedly. “When he’s better. If you guys aren’t too wasted.”

“We’re never too wasted for anything!” Dum Dum declared.

“Except that time you couldn’t remember how to tie your shoes,” Gabe pointed out.

“Or that time you forgot the name for waffles,” Monty added.

“I hate you all,” Dum Dum cried before laughing.

While the others descended into laughter, snarking, and other mandatory celebratory traditions, Steve flipped his hand around so he and Bucky where holding hands very loosely. Bucky’s hands were slightly rough but very warm, and Steve clung to it with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn’t very much, but it was the thought that counted.

Bucky leaned forward and said in a soft voice in his ear, “So, what is your name? If you want to tell me, that is.”

“What, Mrs. Stark didn’t tell you?” Steve asked, surprised.

Bucky sighed dramatically. “No, she just waltzed in here, chatted with you, and left again. She’s so elegant and put together, but she and Tony are about the same level of dramatic, sometimes.”

Steve let out a wheezing laugh.

“Noam?”

“Steve,” he whispered back. “My name is Steve.”

“Well, hello, Steve,” said Bucky. “Don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Bucky.”

“Hi, Bucky,” said Steve. “It’s good to meet you, too.” He looked up just in time to get Bucky’s full-wattage smile.

This time, he couldn’t help but smile back.

Over the next few weeks, Steve spent his time recovering from the gunshot wound and rebuilding his life after the fall of Leviathan and Project Insight. Tony was a great help. Apparently, if Maria Stark was fond of a person, her son would move mountains for them. Or forge completely believable IDs and backstories for people, since Steve, who’d been a minor in the foster care system when he’d gotten tangled up in Reborn, had very little in the way of authentic paperwork.

Steve was never going to be able to repay him.

Sam was a great help, too, and while he wasn’t Steve’s therapist or anything like that, he listened well as a friend and took Steve out on slow, ambling walks through the city, chatting and enjoying themselves.

Clint still took Steve out shooting, or out to a park to play with Lucky. Clint didn’t pressure Steve into talking about anything he didn’t want to talk about, and Steve often found himself seeking Clint out just to watch _Dog Cops_ or play various card games both cheated spectacularly at.

The Howlies were a bit more protective over him, for the first couple of months. No surprise—he ran away to New Jersey on their watch. As Bucky told him, there was only so far they’d let him fall.

But that meant he got to eat out and had all the company he wanted whenever they were free. He also got to hear all about their fight against the Insight Helicarriers and how Dernier’s bombs took out one almost immediately, which then crashed into another, thereby leaving the very smug Frenchman lording over the other Howlies how he’d taken out _two_ Helicarriers while the rest fought the third. There was much teasing, cussing, and shouting during the story, which Steve couldn’t stop laughing over.

Bruce and the teens at _Smashing Coffee_ were glad to see him again, and Bruce even gave him a quick hug when Steve finally showed back up.

“I thought you were gone for good!” Peter said, making Steve a coffee without asking for his order or money. “Like, totally gone!”

“Not just yet,” said Steve.

“ _Good,_ ” said Kate. “You didn’t even say goodbye, asshole.”

“Kate,” Kamala said. She was looking much less stressed and tired, and Steve couldn’t help but smile happily at her.

The biggest surprise came when, three weeks after D.C., Peggy showed up at Stark’s mansion, where Steve was staying until he could figure out his living situation in San Francisco.

“Peggy?” he croaked in surprise after he’d come to the door.

“Steve.” She smiled. She still looked rather hollowed-out and tired, but her make-up was impeccable and she wore a lovely blue dress.

“We also exist,” jumped in another woman, who was slightly taller than Peggy with curly brown hair standing next to Sousa.

“Hush, Angie,” said Peggy. “He hasn’t seen me in a while. May we come in?”

“Of course,” said Steve, stepping back.

He showed them to the nearest sitting room and wondered how the hell he was going to get them refreshments and food.

“We’re not staying long,” Peggy said regretfully. “I have a house we’re going to live in up in Seattle.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “But you—you’re alright?”

Peggy took both of his hands in hers and said, “I’m just fine, Steve. I promise.”

Steve glanced at Sousa and Angie, and said, “Sousa, I’m glad you’re good.”

“Me too,” said Sousa cheerfully. “It’s been a harrowing couple’a months, huh?”

Steve grinned. “Tell me about it. And it’s good to meet you, Angie. How, uh…”

“Angie is a nurse,” said Peggy. “She and Daniel went to school together. He got in contact with her when I was … out of sorts.”

“Thank you,” he told Angie.

Her eyebrows rose. “Is he this sincere _all_ the time, English?”

“‘Fraid so,” said Peggy, giving Steve’s hands a squeeze and then leaning back.

“It’s really good to see you,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she sighed. Sousa muttered something to Angie, and they both got up and left the room. “And I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you when you needed me.”

“It all worked out, in the end,” said Steve. “I’m just glad you’re better.”

“Me too,” she said fervently. “Are you going to stay here, with them?”

“It’s a good place,” said Steve. “You’d like Pepper. You sure you don’t want to stay?”

Peggy shook her head. “Not now. Sousa and Angie are talking about taking me on a _vacation._ ”

“The horror,” said Steve dryly.

Peggy laughed. “Well, I think you’re in good hands, here, Steve. I’m happy for you.”

“And you,” said Steve. “Hey—how did you know to call them?”

Peggy grinned wickedly and said, “You’re not the only one with Howard’s technology. Daniel traced Howard’s computer back to San Francisco, and once we saw the hotel you were staying at and who lived nearby, we figured you at least met Tony Stark. You respected Howard so much we couldn’t imagine you didn’t at least accidentally-on-purpose ran into him. So we took a chance.”

“Well,” said Steve. “Thank you.”

“Oh, Steve, you idiot,” she whispered, sinking onto the floor in front of him and wrapping him up in a hug. “It was my _pleasure._ ”

He hugged her back tightly and breathed in once, twice, and then they leaned apart, both smiling before Sousa and Angie returned, drinks and snacks in their hands.

The next hour or so, they all regaled one another with stories from the past few months (or, since Peggy had been out of it, a few interesting tidbits from some of her more infamous cons) and caught up, laughing and teasing and bantering back and forth. Despite the fact that Steve had never met Angie before, she was easy to talk to, witty and charming, and Steve could see why Peggy and Sousa were so taken with her.

When they finally bid goodbye, Steve let them go with a heavy heart, but they were out. They were out of the business, which meant that they could call one another, could text and visit, and Steve couldn’t get over the fact that he could do that now.

So he waved goodbye and knew that he’d see them again, some day.

It left him feeling light and happy.

That was something Bucky immediately noticed the next time he saw Steve.

“Good?” Bucky whispered in his ear.

Steve pulled back slightly as he looked up at Bucky. It had been three weeks, since Bucky learned the truth and helped Steve root out Leviathan. Three weeks since they danced, nearly four at this point since they’d kissed, and Steve wanted, he _wanted…_

But their relationship, no matter what Bucky had said, had been built on many lies and half-truths. He deserved more than Steve rushing in willy nilly into something he wanted to do _right._

So he leaned up and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s cheek and said, “I’m good.”

And Bucky smiled and said, “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go!


	22. Chapter 22

_-One Year Later-_

“Goodnight and goodbye, San Francisco!” Bucky called to applause, sauntering off the stage with a wink a grin.

Steve, seated at a table with the Howlies, Sam, and Clint, clapped hard with them.

Steve had recovered well. He had less mobility in his shoulder than he used to have, but most days he barely noticed. He didn’t look much like Noam Grant, these days, but he rather thought he looked like Steve Rogers. There was a faded streak of blue in his hair, and he wore the same leather jacket he’d found in a thrift shop more than a year ago, but his face was uncovered and he wore jeans, a button-up with little feather motifs, and well-worn sneakers.

He felt comfortable. Like himself.

“Drinks!” Dum Dum cried, shoving his chair back as he jumped to his feet. “Off we go!”

Steve grinned as he followed the rest of his friends out into the chill night air. It was nearly summer, but the last graspings of a cold spring air still skated through the nights.

“We should play beer pong!” Clint shouted.

“What are we, eighteen?” Monty demanded.

“Totally, look at me, I’m young and spry!” Dum Dum wiggled his moustache.

Everyone laughed as Steve heard someone approach them. From the sauntering gait, Steve knew who it was.

“Hey there, Steve,” said Bucky, wrapping his arms around Steve.

“Jerk,” said Steve fondly. “Ready to go drink and watch Clint try to play beer pong?”

“Hmm.” Bucky pressed a kiss to the side of Steve’s head. Steve couldn't help but grin dopily at that. He and Bucky might have been together for four months now, but Steve didn't think he'd ever get used to how Bucky made him feel. “We could do that. _Or_ we could have a night in and watch ridiculous movies.”

“Sounds great,” said Steve before raising his voice. “Later, fellas!”

“Hey, c’mon!” Morita cried, grinning.

“Don’t do what I wouldn’t do!” Dum Dum shouted. Dernier elbowed him in the gut, and Dum Dum groaned.

“Later, Steve,” Sam said, grinning, and Steve blushed and scowled.

“Aww,” Clint grumbled, slinking off in the direction of the bar, the Howlies and Sam cheerfully trailing behind him.

Steve and Bucky waved them off and headed back to their apartment. It had been two months since Steve had moved in, and it still gave him a thrill to think it. This was _their_ place. Their _home._

Once they were inside and wrapped in blankets on the couch, Steve let his head rest against Bucky’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

The time he spent thinking he’d been dead in a few short months seemed like a distant fever-dream, one he was glad to leave behind. Now the future sprawled before him, open and endless and filled with friends and love and Steve couldn’t hardly bear to think of it without getting sappy.

He was happy.

He was _happy._

“Off in another timeline?” Bucky teased, ruffling Steve’s hair.

“Naw,” said Steve, smiling into his chest. “There’s no other timeline I’d rather be in.”

“Sap,” said Bucky fondly. “I love you.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat, and he twisted up to kiss Bucky on the lips and whisper, “I love you, too.”

They tried to kiss again, but couldn’t; they were both smiling too wide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap, folks! I honestly can't believe it--I've really enjoyed writing this story and now it's done! Big thanks to mmouse15, who helped me out when I needed it and encouraged me every step of the way. Thank you so much <3<3
> 
> Also, an enormous thanks to each and every person who left kudos and comments. You guys have no idea how much it means to me that you let me know you enjoyed this story. _Thank you._

**Author's Note:**

> "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." ~Robin Williams.
> 
> Please let me know if you enjoyed it!


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